


Left Behind

by violetmoonflower



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-11-28 16:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11421507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetmoonflower/pseuds/violetmoonflower
Summary: Shiro has been running from the men who want to kill him for years, but when his little brother Keith gets sick, he has no choice other than leaving him with Allura for a little while. The only problem is that Keith and Allura's little brother Lance don't get along. At all.As "a little while" turns into five years, however, Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge form a friendship strong enough to fight back against the organization on Shiro's trail and finally free him and his brother.





	1. 5th Grade

**5th Grade**

He stood drenched in the doorway, a flash of lightning from behind obscuring his face in shadow for a moment, but she recognised his solemn features before the clap of thunder could follow.

“Shiro?” Allura let her hand slip off the edge of the door, no longer attempting to guard her home from a stranger. Rather, she stared in contemplation at the boy in Shiro’s arms. Black hair, just as wet from the rain, swept thick over his head and down his neck. His face was nuzzled into Shiro's chest and the rest of him was wrapped in a damp blanket, but the little skin she could see was pale and sickly. It was the quivering rise and fall of his chest, however, that gave away his sorry state to her.

“It’s Keith.” Shiro finally spoke, pain in the back of his throat. “He’s sick and I think they’re onto me. I don’t have time. I can’t-” He began to shake his head and hang it lower, tightening his grip on his little brother.

“Alright, alright. It’s alright. Just, come in.” Allura urged him into the living room and onto the couch, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder so that he might speak with more clarity.

“I didn’t want to have to ask this of you, but…” Shiro started again, only to bite his tongue. Luckily, years apart did little to leave Allura without an inkling as to his thoughts.

“You want me to take care of Keith, don’t you.”

“Yeah.”

She sighed, resting her forehead on his shoulder in place of her hand. It was nearly midnight and she had only just coaxed Lance to sleep two hours prior on behalf of the thunder that scared him. She had hoped to be in bed herself by then, but worry kept her awake as it did most nights and she had been watching the tea kettle boil, wearing tired eyes and a old bathrobe, when he knocked. 

“Well, my home is your home and that makes it his too.” Allura gathered herself up and made for the kitchen. “I’ve got a kettle on, would like some tea?”

“Uh, no, I’m fine.” Shiro looked up only briefly, and then returned his gaze to Keith who lied with his head in his lap. Carefully, so as not to disturb him from sleep, Shiro brushed the wet strands of hair from his forehead and let his hand rest down on his cheek. The tips of Shiro’s fingers were icy cold from being bare in the rainstorm, but Keith’s skin was hot with fever so it felt for a moment that there was some clash of temperature there, only for it to fade into monotony. 

He did not feel the minute pass, and so startled and removed his hand when Allura returned from the kitchen.

“So.” She slumped into the chair that faced him from across the coffee table, feet tucked up under her and slender fingers wrapped around a steaming cup of earl grey. “How long can you stay?”

“I’ll need to leave before sunrise.” Shiro finally seemed to have his sense about him again, issuing the response like a soldier’s orders.

“Then you better start telling me what the deal is.” Allura pushed, unfazed.

“Well, I don’t actually know what he’s got, just that I can’t keep him with me in this condition. I know you don’t like to hear about it, but I’m in a bad spot with them right now. They could get me if I’m not careful.” He started, his tone as bleak as ever. “I didn’t want to have to do this to you, I know taking care of Lance is a burden in and of itself, but I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

He looked up, but Allura was too busy blowing the steam off her tea to meet his tentative gaze. She took a sip and then continued with her interrogation.

“I understand, Shiro, I’ve already agreed to hold onto him. I need to know how long you want him to stay here.”

“Right.” Shiro grimaced. “I can’t say when I’ll be back for him.”

“Of course.” Allura rested her eyelids a moment. “What does he eat?”

“Huh?” Her next question caught Shiro off guard.

“If I’m going to be taking care of him I’ll need to know what to feed him.” She contested.

“Oh, well, he’s not picky, normally. He’s never refused food before, except while he’s been sick.” Allura nodded as Shiro spoke, urging him to continue. “He should be easy, really, he’s never given me any trouble. Living with you will be… different, for sure, but he won’t throw tantrums or anything.” Allura gave a knowing chuckle, stories of Lance as a toddler no doubt sparking that comment. “The only thing is, he’s awfully shy around strangers. It’ll probably take awhile for him to warm up to you.”

“Mm.” Allura nodded, taking one final drink before she set down her mug. “Should we get him in dry clothes?”

They started a bath, eventually, deciding that it would be better to rid Keith of his dirt and sweat before she put any of Lance’s clean pajamas on him, and so Shiro roused his brother and helped him half-conscious into the water. Allura, meanwhile, found sheets for the guest bed and pulled some old stuffed animals from the closet to spruce it up for him. Hesitantly, she creaked open the door to Lance’s room and snuck over to his dresser. She felt for the drawers in the dark rather than risk waking him, but just as she thought she’d made her escape, she saw him sitting up in his bed.

“Lura?” He questioned groggily. “Why are all the lights on? And I thought I heard the bath running too?” 

“It’s nothing Lance. Go back to sleep.” She shook her head, determined not to try and explain until the morning. Her little brother had other ideas, however.

“But I can’t! Not if I don’t know what’s going on!” He flopped back against the bed dramatically.

“Oh, alright, come on out then, but you have to be quiet.” She raised a finger to her lips. Lance jumped out of bed straight away, and, seeming not to have heard the last part, began to ask why she was holding his spaceship pajamas.

“They’re for a friend who’s going to be staying over. Now, c’mon.” Allura struggled down the hallway with Lance swinging off her arm, his energy bubbling back up just minutes after he had been sound asleep.

“Who’s friend? Is it Hunk? Why does he need my pajamas?” Lance was incessant until at last Shiro came out of the bathroom. He looked up at the tall, square-shouldered man and cocked his head, silent for only a moment.

“What?” He drew out the word. “Lura! My pajamas aren’t gonna fit him!”

“Heh, whoa, they’re not for me kiddo.” Shiro put his hands up, a smile gracing his lips for the first time that day.

“Then who are they for?” Lance demanded.

“My little brother. He’s going to stay here with you for a little while.” Shiro informed him, more stern this time.

“How old is he?” Lance put his hands on his hips, lips pouting in anticipation of an unsatisfactory answer.

“About your age, sweetie, but he’s very sick right now and won’t want to play.” Allura patted his head, cooling off the tension.

“Oh, okay. That’s not so bad.” Lance finally seemed to settle, but only for a moment. “Is he gonna sleep in the guest room? And what about school, is he coming to school with me? Because I have an empty desk next to me right now and it’s so boring, do you think he could sit there?”

“Well, Lance, I don’t know about all that.” Allura handed the pajamas to Shiro and attempted to guide her brother back to bed. “But maybe we can talk about it in the morning, alright? You do have school tomorrow.”

“But Lura! I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t at least get to say hi to him!” Lance tugged at his sister’s grip on his arm.

“Lance, I already told you, he’s sick.” Allura kneeled down, looking in his eyes and placing a hand on his head so that her fingers sifted through his hair. “He won’t remember saying hi to you now, so I think it would be better if you waited until tomorrow because he might feel better then and remember you. You don’t want him to forget the first time he said hi to you, would you?”

“Mm. No, I guess not.” Lance teetered on his feet, eyes directed at the floor.

“Now, are you going to go back to bed? Or do you need me to tuck you in?” Allura asked.

“I’ll go back to bed on my own,” Lance said, whining the words to lament his fate.

“Good.” Allura gave him one final pat on the head and began to stand, but Lance leaned forward and delivered a peck to her cheek before scurrying around her and into his room.

“Night!”

“Good night.” Allura chuckled. 

Shiro came out of the bathroom with Keith bundled up in blue fleece pajamas with little rocketships printed all over them. His eyes were open, but they did not even feign consciousness. 

“I’ll put him to bed, then, and… say a few goodbyes and be on my way.” He spoke softly.

“Right. I’ll be in the living room when you’re ready to go.” She brushed her hand against his shoulder as she passed, and then descended down the stairs and left him to his brother.

“Keith. Keith, you there buddy?”

“Mm.”

“I have to go now, but I’ll be back for you soon, when you’re better, alright?”

“Ah-”

“No, no, it’s going to be okay. You’re safe. I’m leaving you with a very good friend of mine, alright? And she has a little brother who’s your age, so you can finally have a playmate. Does that sound like fun?”

“Uh…”

“It’ll be fun. I promise. When has your big brother ever broken a promise?”

“Heh.”

“That’s right. It’s all going to be okay.”

Shiro kissed his hand, rose, and turned off the lights. He batted his eyelashes, trying to keep the tears back, but by the time he reached the living room he was crying. It was a silent stream of tears thanks to a persistent bite of the lip, but Allura beckoned him over with open arms nonetheless. 

“It’ll be alright. You’ll see him again.” She soothed. “He’ll be big and strong and full of laughter under my care, you can be sure of that.”

“I know.” Shiro choked it out, finally attempting to dry his eyes. “I just wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“It won’t be, not always. I know it won’t.” Allura shook her head, sparkling eyes staring up into his.

“Right, and someday we’ll all live in this house together and be happy, I suppose.” Shiro chuckled at the thought.

“That’s exactly what I expect to happen.” Allura smiled knowingly. Shiro hung his head, breathing out some form of soft laughter or sobbing, until he finally picked himself up and leaned into Allura. They kissed for a long, somber moment, and then separated, hands running over chests and shoulders but evidently pushing away.

“See you soon.”

“I hope so.”

 

“I’m home!” Lance hopped into the living room, excited to be arriving so early, but soon disheartened at the house’s silent answer. He had walked home from school that day because he knew Allure didn’t go to work so she could tend to Keith, and though Hunk was disappointed not to have his playmate’s usual company, Lance was excited to meet the mysterious boy from the night before.

“Allura…?” Lance ascended the stairs with caution, hands grasping the straps of his backpack.

“Oh, Lance, you’re home.” She slipped out of the guest room and quietly tucked the door closed behind her.

“Yup! Is Keith up? Can I see him?” Lance tried to jump around her, but she kept close to the door and spoke softly to calm him.

“He’s sleeping now, we have to be quiet. Why don’t you do your homework now, so you can say hi when I wake him up at dinner time?” 

Lance sighed, defeated, and marched back to his room, mumbling something about wishing he had just gone to Hunk’s house like usual. He remained antsy all through his math and grammar worksheets, but managed to finish them in record time due to the anticipation. As soon as he was done, he shoved the papers back into their folder, flung it on his desk, and then marched around his room with excited feet. He hopped back and forth, tapping his fingers on his legs until he could no longer take the waiting and leaned out of his door so just one eye could peer down the hall, over the stairs, and straight into the kitchen. He caught Allura with a load of laundry disappearing into the back room and felt safe in his furtive exit. Then, still bouncing his feet ever so slightly, he reached for the door to the guest room and slunk in.

Keith lay wrapped in a thick comforter, and though the room was pitch black, he retained quite a bit more consciousness than the day prior. He was not yet fully asleep, despite Allura’s instructions to rest the whole day through, so when Lance crept in he watched the shadowed figure from the corner of his eye. He didn’t know what to make of it at first, but soon recollected vaguely that Shiro had mentioned a playmate who might live there with him. If it was not the little boy, Keith thought, then it must be an enemy and he should be on guard just in case.

“Hey!” Came the peevish voice in an excited whisper.

“Who are you?” Keith clenched his fist, awaiting the response.

“I’m Lance! I sleep in the room next to this one. You’re wearing my pajamas right now, actually!” Lance’s giggles disarmed Keith, who sighed and decided that this was but a harmless child.

“Oh. I’m Keith.” He responded in monotone.

“I know.” Lance leaned his elbows on the edge of the bed. “I was supposed to meet you last night, but Allura wouldn’t let me becuase she said you were too sick. I mean, I was tired anyways, so maybe she was right, but I’ve been waiting all day to see you and she wouldn’t even let me in because she said you needed to sleep. Are you really that tired? I mean, do have the flu or something, or is it just a cold?”

“You talk a lot.”

Lance stood up, feigning offence, but decided to laugh it off and then leaned back onto the bed.

“You’re funny. When’s your birthday? I wanna know which one of us is older.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because, I’m older than my best friend Hunk and we’re both older than our friend Pidge, so if you’re going to come to school with me and be my friends, I need to know if I’m still the oldest.”

Keith chuckled.

“Shiro says my birthday's in December.”

“Good. That mean’s you’re the second oldest, after me of course.”

“Is that all you wanted to know?”

“What? No, no, no. I need to know how tall you are, I’m the second tallest after Hunk, after all, and I’d like it to stay that way. Oh! And your last name, so I know where you’ll be in line when we line up in alphabetical order, and your favorite food and favorite color - mine’s blue, so it can’t be blue - and all sorts of stuff!”

“Why does any of that matter? I’m not-” Keith started to say, but was interrupted by a fit of coughing. Lance straightened up, alarmed, and was then further startled by Allura racing through the door.

“Is everything alri- Lance? I told you not to go in here!” She ushered him out promptly, shut the door, and kneeled at Keith’s side. As soon as he finished hacking he assured her that Lance wasn’t bothering him, but she only told him to sleep. Keith didn’t argue and awoke when Allura returned with a more subdued Lance that evening.

“Do you think you can eat some soup? It’s just from a can, but it’s nice and warm.” She asked, flicking on the lamp at his bedside so the room was softly lit with an orange glow. Keith sat up slowly, seeing Lance standing behind her with his eyes down and hands clasped, and then nodded.

“Here, I’ll hold the bowl for you.” She sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Keith’s pale hand wrapped around the spoon and brought a sip of the broth to his lips. Lance remained by the far wall, saying nothing, and Keith wondered how someone could change so immensely in a matter of hours. He wasn’t one to ask, however, so he ate his soup in solace and let himself wonder about other things instead.

Allura felt secure in leaving Keith alone so she could work the next day, but returned home early to make sure he had eaten his lunch. Lance decided he would go home with Hunk as he usually did, despite Allura being home, because he felt rather forbidden from his own house. He entered the guest room only at dinner time and said nothing, and so the ritual continued for the next week. Keith grew stronger, but still coughed menacingly on occasion and desired not to leave his bed, so Allura continued to baby him. When the weekend came, Lance was desperate to get out of the house, so he called Hunk on the landline as early as Allura would let him. Only, the call rung out and went to voicemail, reminding Lance that Hunk and his family had left for a weekend visit to the grandparents the night before. Naturally, he tried Pidge next, and had his spirits lifted when her mother answered. Unfortunately, she could only inform him that they were going on a family excursion, and would not be free until dinnertime.

“Oh, um, no. That’s okay.” Lance slumped into the couch. “I’ll see Pidge some other time.”

With that, he found himself alone for the day. He wasn’t allowed to go out by himself, though he would have gladly walked to the skate park if he could, so his only option to escape the house was the back yard.

“Rah!” He kicked at his soccer ball as hard as his little legs would let him and let out small sounds of fury at every hit. The ball would rush forward, the force of the hit seeming powerful, but every time it would thunk against the wooden fence and bounce back feebly to his foot with none of the same strength. 

“Stupid Keith, and stupid Allura.” He muttered to himself, ramming his foot into the ball once more.

“Won’t even let me-” He kicked again, the ball rolling back limp. “-have fun on my own without them!”

“Well, I’ll show them!” Kick. Thunk. Roll.

“I can have fun on my own!” Kick. Thunk. Roll. “I’m having-”

“So!” Kick. Thunk. Roll.

“Much!” Kick. Thunk. Roll.

“Fun!” The ball angled up this time, ricocheting off the fence and slamming back into Lance’s forehead with just as much force. He fell back into the grass, eyes watery, and readied an angry barrage of expletives he was forbidden from repeating, when a few soft giggles tinkled into the garden.

Lance turned to see, one hand now covering the sore spot on his forehead, and discovered a small face in the now open second story window.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, huh?” He shouted back at Keith, who flushed, startled, and ducked away from the window.

“Wait, no-” Lance stood up and scrambled up towards the house. “I was just joking! I’m really not even that hurt, see?”

Keith let his eyes peep back up and looked at the round, red mark on Lance’s forehead. It definitely looked like it hurt, but from Keith’s experience it was nothing, so he believed him.

“Are you up now? I mean, are you feeling good enough to get out of bed?” Lance questioned.

“Kinda.” Was Keith’s hoarse reply.

“Do you want to come down and play with me, then? Kicking a ball at a fence isn’t very fun.” Lance put on a pouty look.

“Mmm… I don’t know.” Keith started to slink back down, his sore throat and foggy head imploring him to stay in the dark.

“Ugh, I forgot, you’re no fun.” Lance crossed his arms and turned around.

“No. I’m sick.” Keith mumbled. Lance pretended not to hear, busy picking at a rock on the ground with his foot. “I just don’t want to go outside. That doesn’t mean I’m no fun.”

“It does to me.” Lance kicked the dislodged rock across the yard.

“Well you don’t know anything about anything.” Keith’s tone took a sour turn.

“Maybe you don’t know anything.” Lance whipped around, glaring at him fervently.

“I do too!” Keith started to turn red. “I know that stupid things like being the oldest or the tallest or having the same favorite color don’t matter for anything!”

“It does too matter! I’m older and taller, so I’m better, duh!” Lance stamped his foot, satisfied with his remark, and marched back over to his soccer ball. If Keith was going to be such a dummy, he thought, then he’d be better off playing by himself.

Keith, however, was boiling mad and clinging to the edge of the window with white knuckles. He watched, lips quivering with indignation, until he could bare it no longer.

“If you’re so much better, then why does Allura have to tell you what to do all the time?”

Lance let the ball slip from his fingers. Normally, he would only feel the need to throw out a lousy comeback and be done with the taunts, but Keith not only struck a sensitive topic for Lance after what felt like a week of humiliation, he implied that he had been eavesdropping on conversations Lance had assumed to be private. If there was one thing Lance hated most, is was people listening to him be sad or angry and him not knowing it.

“Shut up!” Lance screamed, his leg kicking the ball straight for Keith’s window. Luckily, he ducked, but the vessel landed somewhere in the dark room with a crash. Lance went pale, knowing Allura must have heard it.

“Lance!” Her voice came loud and shrill as the back door slammed open.

“He started it!” Tears forced their way out with the words, streaking down Lance’s cheeks faster than he could wipe them. Allura only sighed, resting her thumb and pointer finger on the bridge of her nose for a moment, and then walked over to Lance and put out her hand.

“Let’s go inside. It’s been a rough week for both of us and we need to sit down and have a talk. Alright?” 

Lance reluctantly put his hand in hers and allowed himself to be led back inside. From his room upstairs, Keith heard quiet sobs and soothing words, but his own heart wouldn’t stop racing. He sat on his bed, staring at the shards of the broken lamp which glittered on the floor, and ran his conversation with Lance over and over in his head. He couldn’t understand why Lance, or even himself, had gotten so angry. He couldn’t understand the things Lance thought were important and he couldn’t understand how to ask Lance without making him angry. 

Worst of all, though, he couldn’t understand that not asking Lance would only make him angrier.

 

It had been a month since Keith was first delivered into Allura’s care, and, as he was back in full health, Allura made arrangements for him to attend the same elementary school where Lance went. She had outfitted him with clothes that fit better than borrowing Lance’s and bought a bright red backpack: Keith’s favorite color. With much coercion, she managed to convince Lance that Keith was simply not used to the company of other children, and so, as his housemate, Lance would have to set aside his own distaste and shoulder the responsibility of making sure his classmates got along with him. Or, as he put it, make sure he was the only one kicking soccer balls through Keith’s window.

Keith, meanwhile, had decided that the less he spoke to Lance the less likely he would be to get mad at him, so with silence came a tenuous peace and the two were reconciled enough to attend the same fifth grade class together.

That first morning the sky was covered with a quilt of grey clouds, a bit of morning light merely seeping in through the seams, and Lance stared up at it as the two them walked down the sidewalk.

“What are you looking up for?” Keith asked, hoping the question would be innocent enough.

“For rain.” Lance answered without averting his eyes from his target. “When the clouds are big and grey like this it’s probably going to rain, and if it starts raining I want to be able to feel the drops on my face. I like feeling the rain.”

“But aren’t you-” Keith caught himself. “Nevermind.”

“Aren’t I what?” Lance turned to glare at him.

“Mmm…” Keith chewed on the words, refusing to enunciate.

“What?” Lance leaned into his path, preventing him from walking any farther without complying.

“I said, aren’t you afraid of thunder?” Keith mumbled a bit more audibly this time.

Lance startled, face red, but reminded himself of his charge. He wasn’t allowed to fight with Keith at school, and even though they weren’t there yet, he felt it necessary to prove that he could, in fact, go twenty minutes without getting into some kind of screaming match.

“Yes, yes I am.” He stated matter-of-factly. “But thunder and rain are not the same thing.”

With that, he marched onwards. Keith sighed, and soon followed.

In the classroom, next to the cubbies where everyone kept their things, Pidge and Hunk were anticipating Lance’s arrival, as well as the mysterious boy they’d been told about.

“Well, well, well. This is the little pain in the butt, huh?” Pidge joked as soon as she saw them.

“Sh! Pidge!” Lance jumped to cover her mouth, and then turned an awkward smile to Keith. “What ever gave her the idea to say that, ha-ha!”

Keith rolled his eyes and took off his backpack.

“I put it on the hanger, yeah?”

Lance nodded, relaxing a bit, but gave Pidge a knowing glare as soon as Keith turned his back.

“Well, uh, I’m Hunk.” The quieter, less antagonistic boy extended a hand to Keith. “I guess you’ll be going to my house after school now too, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Keith shrugged, but did not acknowledge Hunk’s genial gesture. Instead, he stared blankly as Hunk held his hand in the air, not sure as to whether Keith was denying him.

After a long minute, Lance cleared his throat and leaned over to stage-whisper in Keith’s ear.

“You’re supposed to shake it.”

Keith looked down in surprise and Pidge burst into laughter.

“Wha-” Keith started to blush, still not sure what to do. Lance tried to cover Pidge’s mouth again, insisting that she be quiet, but only worked himself up into giggles too.

“Like this.” Hunk went on, unfazed, and grabbed Keith’s hand so he could show him the proper greeting. “You shake hands with people you meet to show that you want to be friends with them. Or, if you just want to be polite.”

“Oh. Okay.” Keith retracted his hand as soon as it was free.

Eventually, the teacher called class to a start, which silenced Lance and Pidge’s snickers, and Keith was instructed to take the empty desk in the back next to Lance. The classroom was arranged so that each desk had a pair and all the pairs faced the board where the teacher wrote and occasionally called kids up. Keith found it increasingly hard to concentrate as the lesson went on and started to swing his feet under his desk to keep himself busy. Lance noticed, and, immediately peeved, whispered for him to stop. Keith thought perhaps it was against the rules to swing your feet, and because Allura had told him he needed to mind the school’s rules no matter how odd they seemed to him, he obliged. However, in another five minutes he had begun to tap his pencil on his desk. Lance bore this for a meager thirty seconds before he reached over and grabbed Keith’s wrist, silently instructing him to quit. Keith once again obliged, but removed his hand from Lance’s grip rather forcefully and shot him a glare. The two sat silently for quite some time, a storm cloud growing over them, until at last Keith gave into his restless senses and kicked his feet about again, this time hitting Lance in the ankle.

“Can you not sit still for one minute?” Lance hissed under his breath.

“I just did for twenty. Can you not count?” Keith hissed back, and then looked back at the board, hoping that would be the end of it. Lance had other ideas.

“If you’re going to kick then move over.” He gave Keith a shove, moving him a slight two inches to the right.

“How about you move over?” Keith retaliated, giving Lance what he thought was an equally weak shove, but managed to send him flailing to the floor.

“Ah!” Lance let out an unconscious yelp and pulled his chair down with him, finally attracting the attention of the teacher.

“What is going on here?” She marched over. “Keith? Did you just push Lance?”

“I- I- I barely even-” Keith stammered, shaking his head vigorously.

Lance remained on the floor a moment, eyes starting to water, when the consequences of such a scuttle getting back to Allura hit him square in the head. In an instant, he was on his feet and putting on the most innocent smile he could manage.

“No, no, everything's fine!” He forced a laugh. “Keith’s never been to a real school before, is all, so he has trouble sitting still. He wasn’t trying to rough house me, he’d never do that, right buddy? We get along real well, huh, Keith?”

Lance gave Keith a friendly nudge, praying he would play along.

“Right!” Keith caught on and jumped to his feet, only, he went for a straight posture with one hand up to his forehead, saluting military style. “No fighting here, miss!”

The class erupted into laughter and the teacher sighed, shaking her head. Keith melted, looking to Lance for help, but found him with a hand on his face and groaning.

“Oh, all right, boys. But this is strike one. Any more trouble and I switch your seats.” The teacher relented, and Lance took his seat again, the storm cloud only darker. Keith managed to remain relatively still until lunch; he was so startled he barely even realized the time passed and just sat there, pale as a ghost. He finally spoke again after shifting the food around on his tray for fifteen minutes.

“Lance, what did I do wrong?” Was his nervous inquiry. 

“Huh?” Lance put down his chocolate milk and halted his conversation with Hunk and Pidge.

“Uh- I mean- why does everyone keep laughing at me?” He looked down into his lap.

“Well… that is…” Lance scratched his cheek. As much as he hated Keith himself, it still wasn’t sitting well with him that he was being upset by other people.

“Easy.” Pidge pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You’re weird.”

“Pidge!” Hunk slapped her hand down.

“What? I don’t mean it as a bad thing.” She took an extraordinarily large bite of her pizza.

“Well, I think what Pidge was trying to say,” Hunk picked up for her, “is that everyone is weird, so even though some people might laugh at you, we’ll still be your friends.”

“And laugh at you! Friends are good for that too.” Pidge added, mouth still full.

“Yeah. Yeah!” Lance joined in. “You are weird, Keith. I mean super weird-”

“I get it.”

“-but that’s alright. So don’t let anyone else get to you.” Lance finished, pretending not to have heard Keith’s comment.

“What about you?” Keith asked dryly.

“We… have our differences.” Lance stuck his nose in the air.

“Right.” Keith rolled his eyes and finally attempted to eat his lunch.

 

There was a crispness in the air that saturday morning; it was not so much a chill but the feeling of a sharp breath that would occasionally blow across exposed skin, and it put a flush into Keith’s cheeks as they walked down to the skatepark. Allura had finally yielded to Lance’s requests to spend an hour or two there, as she had kept him at home for a month. He was absolutely ecstatic, but Keith just walked silently behind him, not too sure where it was that they were going.

He first picked up his head at the sound of wheels churning and scraping in chaotic rhythm. There were a lot of things he’d never seen before his stay with Lance and Allura, but this was the first to peak his interest. He watched the skateboarders go up and down, listening intently for the click of a flip or the silence of wheels catching air. He didn’t even see Lance strap on his shiny blue helmet and run over to the ramp. Keith’s ears were intent, however, so he picked up the raspy kiss of Lance’s wheels on the concrete. Lance had his body low, arms out for balance, and his gaze was tunneled ahead, soaked up by concentration. 

The two boys held their breath in unison as Lance went for the jump and in that moment Keith heard nothing at all. He watched the board flip under Lance’s feet, the motion swift yet methodical, and then hit the ground, bringing the sharp grating back into Keith’s ear with a start.

Lance rolled his board in a lazy circle until he swung back by Keith and put a foot out to stop once he was a few feet past.

“You like that?”

“Mm.” Keith nodded.

“Here.” Lance got off his board, suddenly soft in demeanor. “I can teach you, if you want.”

“Yeah?” Keith questioned, retracting cautiously.

“Yeah, I mean it.” Lance put out his hand, smiling genuinely to discharge Keith’s doubts.

“O… kay.” 

Keith approached, looking down at the skateboard instead of at Lance and only took his hand lightly. He put one foot on and tried to lift the other, but was so startled by the slight movements of the wheels beneath him that he dropped it right back down and clenched his shoulders towards his ears.

“Heh, that’s normal. I was pretty nervous the first time I got on too.” Lance moved closer, taking Keith’s other hand and applying a firmer grip. “You just gotta have something to hold onto, and then you can learn to balance. Try again.”

Keith obliged, leaning a bit towards Lance to steady himself and then lifting his foot and tentatively placing it down next to the other. The board tremored slightly, but Lance tensed his arms to keep Keith steadily in place. They both looked down at Keith’s feet and, seeing them stable, peeped back up to give each other an excited glance.

“Yeah, that’s it!” Lance encouraged. “Now try and face forward, so you can start moving.”

“Moving?” Keith’s voice cracked, causing him to gulp the word back down and go red.

“Yes, Keith, that’s the point.” Lance snickered to himself, taking back one of his hands to cover his mouth. Keith looked away, brimming with embarrassment, and waiting for the fit to pass.

Lance sighed, finally clearing out his system.

“Okay, okay. Now face forward and put one foot out to push with.”

Across the park, Allura looked up from her phone and let out a little laugh of surprise at the sight of the two of them. She’d only ever seen them fight, and though Lance told her continually that he made nice while they were at school, she’d always had her doubts. Now, however, she could tell that there was a great deal of comfort between them hidden under the shouting and teasing. Every time Keith stumbled or fell off the board, Lance was there to catch and straighten him, encouraging him between fits of giggles.

“So, you and Keith can get along, huh?” Allura asked that night when Lance came to snuggle up with her in front of the television.

“Yeah, I told you that.” Lance absentmindedly balled up some lint from the blanket and flicked it off.

“Well it was pretty hard to believe, from what I’d seen.”

Lance gave her a funny look, and then turned back to the TV.

“I just don’t get him, okay? I know you keep telling me he didn’t live a normal life before so that’s why he seems so weird to me-”

“I didn’t call him weird, that was you.” Allura interrupted. Lance rolled his eyes.

“Same difference. Anyways, I know you keep telling me all that, but I still don’t get what his deal is. I mean, one minute he’s super nervous and I have to take care of him, and the next he’s super mean and wants nothing to do with me! If he could just make up his mind I’d be happy to be friends with him.”

Allura had to hold in laughter, seeing Lance sit there pouting with his arms crossed.

“Don’t you go back and forth too, though? From being mean and nice to him?” She placed a hand in his hair, making him look up at her.

“I guess.” Lance shrugged, then pondered it for a moment and suddenly took on a sad arch to his eyebrows. “Does that mean it’s my fault he doesn’t like me?”

“No, no, Lance! That’s not what I meant.” Allura practically jumped, knowing how much it took to reveal Lance’s underbelly of self-doubt.

“Well that’s what it sounded like!” Lance jerked away, pushing the blanket off of himself and rolling to the other side of the couch. Allura opened her mouth to try and calm him, but subsided when she heard him whimpering. She let out a long breath and gave him a minute before trying again.

“Lance, do you want to be friends with Keith?”

He was silent a moment, then sniffled and replied.

“Yeah.”

“Well, how do you usually make friends?”

Silence. Allura tried again.

“How did you become such good friends with Hunk?”

Lance sighed, grumbling out his answer.

“I was nice to him.”

“Well, then there’s your solution.”

“But Lura!” Lance rolled back over, finally willing to face her. “He’s just so frustrating sometimes! I can’t help it!”

“Who’s frustrating?” Keith stood at the bottom of the stairs, hair wet from taking a bath and dressed in his new red racecar pajamas.

“Nothing, Keith. Go to bed.” Lance balled himself back up, making sure not to look in Keith’s direction.

“It’s not even nine o’clock yet! Allura, can’t I watch TV with you guys?” He protested.

“I... suppose.” She sent a side glance to Lance, but ultimately moved over so that Keith could sit on the other side of her.

“Fine, then I’m going to bed.” Lance sulked out of the room. Keith watched him go, mouth half open and some kind of plea stuck on his tongue, but he forced it back down and deflated into the couch once he was gone.

Allura watched him from the corner of her eye, wondering if he would want to talk to her about it, but eventually she decided it would probably only embarrass Keith. She didn’t take him for one that wanted to discuss his feelings.

“Just when I think he’s started to like me, he goes and says how much I frustrate him.”

Apparently, she was wrong about that.

“Oh, Keith, that wasn’t what he meant.” She shook her head.

“There’s no need to sugar-coat it.”

“Okay, but, before that he was saying how much he wanted to be friends with you.” She took a better stab at it this time, now that she’d gotten over the shock.

“Really?” He gave her that same funny look.

“Really. He just doesn’t know how.”

Keith turned back towards the television, but stared through it, not at it, biting his lip in concentration.

“Huh.” He eventually released his thoughts. “I guess we’re in the same boat then.”

“Yes, see, that’s what I’ve been trying to get at.” Allura fell back into the couch with relief. “All you need to do is talk to each other about it and I’m sure you can get over this.”

“Mmm…” Keith clenched up. “I don’t know, I think he’ll get mad if I do that.”

“Wait, you haven’t been trying to make him mad already?” Allura let the comment slip out, but, to her relief, it only induced a laugh and a smug grin from Keith.

“Allura, if I was  _ trying _ to make him mad, there would be a lot more broken things in the house than that one lamp.” 

“Oh.” Allura nodded starkly.

“Anyways.” Keith deflated again. “Thanks for telling me that, but, I don’t know if talking to him about it is going to help. I’ll just… figure something else out.”

With that, Keith pushed himself off the couch and wandered up the stairs back to his room. Allura turned off the television; she’d stopped paying attention to the program a while ago, and wondered how it was that Keith was so well spoken sometimes.

 

“Hunk, watch out! She’s going for the-” Lance shouted, shaking his friend's shoulders from behind the couch, but slunk back down when the impact of the explosion got him anyways.

“Ugh, nevermind. Pidge wins again.”

“Ha! That’s a fifty six to one record now.” Pidge proclaimed, the television screen announcing Hunk’s failure to back her up. The four kids had piled into the drippy basement of the Holt home to play video games until their parents came down to rip them off the controllers. Currently, Pidge was piling up her wins on Supreme Smackdown 3: the third instalment in a more child-friendly line of fighting games. Her favorite character was “Dark Blade”, the mysterious ninja who, despite the name, used bombs as their leading attack. As far as Hunk and Lance were concerned, she was practically unbeatable. Her brother Matt was the only one who ever managed to pull off a win, but even then he hadn’t been able to repeat it since.

“Oh man.” She stretched out her shoulders, then held her controller out to the boys behind the couch. “I think that’s enough smack-downing for me today. Does anyone else wanna jump in or should we switch the game?” 

“I think I’m pretty beat too.” Hunk concurred.

“Whaddya say, Keith?” Lance put on an impish smile. “Want me to show you how it’s done?”

“Uh… I don’t even know how to hold the controller.” Keith reeled.

“Aw, c’mon, I’ll just teach you to play. I promise.” Lance leaned one elbow against the couch, adding the slightest bit of sarcasm to his speech.

“Alright, fine.” Keith yielded, much to the room’s delight. He took a soft perch on the couch, feet tucked up to it edge instead of resting on the floor, and was handed the controller. He only got to inspect if for a moment before the other three swarmed him, eagerly explaining what each button did. Hunk pointed down over his shoulder from behind, Pidge swooped in from the side, and Lance was practically on top of him he was sitting so close. Keith clenched up, barely catching anything they said, and struggled to remember to breath.

“See then this one- uh…” Lance turned slightly, his face not five inches from Keith’s, and recognised the tremor in his eyes and tightness in his lips. “Well, anyway, it’ll be easier to learn on the go. Right guys? Let’s just let him play.”

Lance shuffled to the other side of the couch, cueing the other two to calm their fluttering. Keith breathed out, relaxed his shoulders, and looked over at Lance from under his bangs, wondering if he knew. Lance didn’t look back; he was busy picking his character.

“This is Master Blaster. He has a lazer gun, but I use the freeze ray that Pidge got from the DLC, mostly.”

“Oh, he looks cool.” Keith finally managed to look up at the screen.

“Who do you want to be?” Lance asked, but received a blank stare. “Use the left arrow to scroll through the characters.”

“Ah- thanks.”

Keith hurried through them, not really inspecting their designs. Eventually, he lighted on a character with pale skin and black hair that wore a red bandana and bandages around his knuckles like a boxer. It seemed the most fitting.

“Oh, Fixer Upper? He suits you.” Lance nodded along.

“Fixer… Upper?” Keith grimaced.

“He uses a wrench as his main weapon. See there in his belt?” Hunk pointed over Keith’s head.

“Yeah, his name isn’t great, but I hear they were originally going to call him ‘Wrench McGee’ so, it’s an improvement.” Pidge pushed up her glasses.

“Right.” Keith put on a half-smile and pressed the select button.

The first few minutes of the round were rather uneventful, as Lance simply explained how the game worked and let Keith attack the air a few times to get the hang of it. Once he did, however, all hell broke loose. He caught Lance off guard, giving him a solid whack with the wrench before they’d agreed to start.

“Hey, hey! That’s cheating!” Lance jumped back and started shooting.

“Heh, sorry.” Keith leaned in towards the screen, managing to avoid nearly every blast.

“Oh, c’mon! Stay still!” Lance hissed between his teeth, his legs starting to lift off the couch.

“And let you win? No way.” Keith smirked, landing a serious blow.

“No. No!” Lance leapt up, gnashing the buttons of the controller so hard each click was audible over the game audio.

“Oh man, this is good.” Pidge starting grinning involuntarily. Hunk gulped.

Keith hit a combo: ten kicks from behind followed by an overhead swing from his wrench. The game went into cutscene mode, displaying Lance’s failure in carefully choreographed high definition.

“Victory! Fixer-Upper wins.” The game blared.

“Now that’s what I call a natural! Nicely done Keith.” Pidge gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder, and would have started cheering, but was interrupted by Hunk clearing his throat.

“Uh, Lance?” 

The room went dead; Lance’s face looked like a crumpled wad of paper.

“Are you kidding me?” He exploded, then sucked his breath back in, trying to take the words back with it. Keith looked him in the eye for just a moment, but it was long enough for him to see a well-spring of pain about to pour out.

And then he ran out of the room.

“Aw, Lance, c’mon.” Hunk pleaded after him, only to be taken aback by Keith vaulting himself over the couch to pursue him.

He followed Lance up the stairs, through the hall, and past the kitchen where Pidge’s mom asked if something was wrong. Neither of them replied, heading straight out the door instead. Once he made it to the end of the driveway, Lance pivoted back around.

“Why are you following me?” His voice bubbled up in his throat. The struggle to keep his tears down was very much intertwined with his ability to speak.

“I’m sorry Lance. I didn’t mean for it to go like... that.” Keith stumbled out an apology.

“Keith, I don’t-” Lance’s chest tremored and he spun around, frantically wiping his cheeks. “I don’t care about a stupid video game.”

“But, you do care. That has to count for something.” Keith bit his lip. Lance looked back over his shoulder.

“What?”

“I mean- I’m sure this is about other things too, but, you do care about video games. You care about them and I came in and ruined it for you.  _ I _ don’t care about video games, so it shouldn’t have been about me.” His voice trailed into a whisper. “That’s why I’m apologizing.”

“Keith.” Lance interrupted himself with laughing this time: breathy giggles that could have been mistaken for sobs. He buried his face into his hands and then pulled his fingers over his skin so that his lower eyelids revealed their veiny, red underbellies. Finally, he released his own cheeks and put some words his mouth.

“Thanks, I guess, but winning one match really isn’t that important. Even if the guy you’re playing against has literally never played before.” He shook his head but soon got back on track. “But, no. No. That’s not why I’m upset.”

“It’s… It’s because I frustrate you, right? You want to be friends with me but you don’t know how?” There was a sheen of hope in his eyes that melted through any wall Lance had put up.

“Yeah. Yeah that’s it.” His shoulders started to shake. “It just… it felt like, when you showed up, everything was wrong. Allura stopped paying attention to me and if we fought it was always my fault and I couldn’t do anything fun anymore because I had to be responsible or something.”

“I’m sorry.” Keith mumbled. Lance was wiping his eyes again.

“You know… I’ve cried more times in the last month than I have any other time I can remember.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really-”

“It’s okay.” Lance stopped him. “I’m a crybaby anyways. But I don’t… I don’t hate you. I only  _ thought _ I did because, well, I already told you that. But actually, I really like you Keith. Well, I like you when you’re not mad at me. Or kicking my butt.”

“I- I never hurt you! Not on purpose!” Keith startled at that.

“No, I mean, in a video game.” He was laughing again, less sob-like this time.

“Oh.” Keith chuckled along with him, and then gave him a friendly nudge on the shoulder. “See. You do care.”

“Well, I should care less. No one likes a sore loser.”

“I do, apparently.”

Lance clamped his mouth shut, the tops of his cheeks turning the slightest bit red.

“Oh.” Was all he could manage.

“I mean-” Keith turned a much brighter shade of red. “I like you, uh, as a person! Like, I want to be friends with you! And you already knew that, so…” He gulped down whatever else he was going to say and pulled his hands close to his chest, fidgeting with his thumbs.

“Right, yes, of course!” Lance reached out towards him but didn’t touch him, simply grasping and releasing his hands around the air between them instead.

“Is that… okay?” Keith’s whole body hiccuped with the words.

“Yes, Keith! That was the point, I thought.” Lance’s hands were hovering just beside Keith’s shoulders now. “Are we friends?”

Keith nodded.

“So, can I hug you?”

Keith waited, considering, then nodded again.

“Alright. It’s alright, Keith.” Lance crossed his arms over Keith’s back and patted softly. “I like you too.”

And then Keith melted into him; his face buried itself into Lance’s neck and his hands reached around and grabbed at the back of Lance’s shirt. Lance almost stumbled back from all the weight Keith was resting on him.

“Whoa. It’s… alright.” He kept repeating himself. “It’s alright.” Even as Keith started crying. “It’s alright.” Even as he felt the snot and tears soak through his shirt. “It’s alright.”

Again and again.

“It’s alright.”

 

It was picture day on Friday, so Allura dressed the boys up as best she could. Lance sported a three quarter sleeve, navy blue sweater and a pair of khakis. Keith, meanwhile, was suffocating under the collar of a red button-up paired with dark, corduroy pants. He was itching and shuffling under his clothes the whole day, and he was going to change as soon as he got home, but Lance heard the jingle of the ice-cream truck just as they opened the door.

“Lura! Lura! Do you hear that!” He was practically jumping up and down. “Can we please get ice cream?”

“Ugh. It’s October. What is it still doing out here?” She grumbled.

“Pretty please?” Lance was making his best bambi eyes.

“Oh, alright. But don’t go asking for dessert tonight.” She tapped him on the nose and then went looking for her purse. Lance stamped around in the doorway impatiently.

“Here you go. Make sure Keith gets one too.” She handed him two dollars and gave them both a little push on the back to send them running out towards the street. The truck stalled as soon as it saw them, and the merry tune stopped with it.

“Uh, what is this?” Keith asked, trying to make sense of the brightly colored pictures on the side of the vehicle.

“An ice cream truck? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one before!” Lance gaped, but soon recollected himself, realizing that it wasn’t that much of a shock. “Well, look. You need to pick one of these ice creams and then I’m gonna buy it for you. Okay?” 

“Yeah, okay.”

“I always pick this one,” Lance continued, “the chocolate swirl cone, so you should pick another one. Just, whatever you think looks good.”

“Right, I got it.”

Keith cleared his throat, and then pointed to the strawberry flavored ice cream bar.

“Um, can I have this one?” He tried to address the man in the truck, but didn’t get a response.

“One strawberry shortcake, please?” Lance stepped in, taking the bar from the man and then transferring it to Keith. “He can’t see the picture, Keith.” He added quietly.

“Oh.” Keith took it sheepishly. Lance started to order his own, so Keith began carefully removing the wrapper to reveal the treat inside. He sucked in an awed breath at the bright pink and cream colored droplets that coated the bar. If Lance hadn’t told him it was ice cream, he wouldn’t have been sure that it was actually edible. When he lifted it to his mouth and took a tiny bite, however, he lit up beyond belief.

“Lance! It tastes so good!” He gushed, holding the bar like a prized rose. Lance started snickering.

“Of course it does. It’s ice cream!”

“I know.” Keith gave a little shrug.

“C’mon. Let’s go eat on the porch.” Lance danced his way back up the driveway, carefully removing the lid on his cone as soon as he was safely seated. Keith nested himself next to him and took a few more bites of his strawberry flavored decadence, but at some point he stopped eating and starting staring out at the horizon. There was a bright yellow house across the street with a white door and pink flowers under every window. There were oak trees on either side of it and a sprawling sky erupted from behind them. At that hour, the sun was low, but not yet setting, leaving wisps of lavender on the clouds and a glowing gold under them. He’d seen the sky so many times before: from the mountain side, over the ocean, or framed by the forest canopy. Yet somehow, it was this sky that filled his breath with the beauty of the world.

“Lance, I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in one place for this long before.”

“It’s dripping. On your fingers.”

“Oh!” Keith startled and frantically lapped up the ice cream, almost forgetting the sky. It was so very sweet, after all, and he didn’t want to waste a drop.

“Um, Keith?” Lance brought back the somber tone of his own accord.

“Yeah?” Keith wiped his mouth on his wrist.

“What was your life like before?” Silence ensued. Lance tried again. 

“I mean, I feel like if I knew how different things were for you before, I might understand you. And understand why we didn’t get along. And… and why you were crying.”

“Oh. Right.” Keith took another bite of his ice cream. He was just about half done with it now. Lance waited, nibbling down his cone.

“Well, I don’t remember a whole lot of what life was like before we set out on our own, Shiro and I.” He licked his lips, considering whether or not he should continue. “But, uh, I remember I had a dad. Shiro and I are only half brothers, see, and we have the same dad, but neither of us remember our mothers.”

“Me too!” Lance gushed. “I mean, about being half-siblings. Me and Allura have the same mom, but different dads.”

“Huh. Yeah, that makes sense.” Keith nodded.

“Anyways.” Lance settled himself. “You continue.”

“Right. Um, so we lived somewhere kinda desert-ish with our dad. I guess I did stay there longer than I have here, but, I don’t remember much of it so…” Keith shrugged and Lance gave a simple nod of understanding. “Anyways, one day, Shiro and I had to leave. I didn’t know it then, but our dad died that night.  _ They _ killed him.”

“Who are… they?” Lance questioned, resting his ice cream hand back on his leg.

“You know,  _ them _ . The people who wanna get Shiro. To kill him or torture him or something.” Lance didn’t seem to understand, but Keith didn’t know how else to explain it. “Look, they’re the bad guys, okay? Just, a bunch of bad guys who wanna catch Shiro. And if they find out where I am, they’ll come to catch me too, so they can use me as bait to catch him.”

“So… that’s what you did? Ran from  _ them _ for, like, how many years?”

“Six. Since I was four.”

“Oh.. wow.”

Keith went back to eating his ice cream. Lance didn’t know where his appetite had run off to, so he just let the ice cream in his cone melt. As the sun got closer to the horizon, the lavenders turned into pinks and the gold went deep orange.

“He taught me how to hunt.” Keith started up again once he was done with his treat. “We ate rabbits and squirrels. Snakes, even, if we had to. Sometimes we would stop in a city for a week or two, but only when Shiro was extra sure that we’d thrown them off. He’d get a job working at a factory or something and we’d sleep in a motel and eat food from the supermarket. When the motel had a microwave, it was great. Two of them had pools. Those were the best ones.”

“Oh, you know how to swim?” Lance interrupted.

“Yeah!” Keith nodded, smiling. “Shiro taught me the first time we found a lake. He said if I was being chased, and I came across a body of water, he’d want me to be able to escape.”

“Right.” Lance ignored the ice cream dripping out of the bottom of his cone.

“Oh, man. Camping in the mountains was the best. I mean, sleeping in a real bed is great, but when you can see all those stars… It’s like nothing else. But, things had been bad for the past few months. They were right on Shiro’s tail, and then I got sick.” He closed his eyes, pained by the thought. “I was so sick he had to carry me for three days until we got to your house. I don’t even remember him saying goodbye to me. I just woke up in that room and then Allura was giving me warm food and…”

He crumpled up the wrapper and clenched it between his hands. Lance reached a hand over to pat his back but pulled away when Keith shook his head.

“I’m okay. I just… I just realized how nice it is here.” His voice popped and cracked like an ill-tuned instrument. “I had no idea that this is what… this is how everyone else gets to live.”

Lance nodded, not sure what else to say.

“Thank you. For the ice cream, Lance.”

“Yeah. Any time.”


	2. 7th Grade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been nearly three years since Shiro left Keith in Allura's care and he's been enjoying a normal live. Until, of course, 'they' catch onto his location. Lance, Pidge, Hunk, and Allura will have to be ready for anything if they want to keep him safe.

**7th Grade**

The trees rushed by and the twigs and leaves crackled under their footfalls as they ran through the forest. Lance’s breath was a mixture of panting and laughing when he looked back at Keith running a few feet behind him.

“Keep up, guys! Lance is coming in the lead!” He shouted with hands cupped around his mouth. Keith smirked and leaped forward to match his pace.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” He elbowed Lance in the side.

“Oh yeah?” Lance swung his body to the side for a hit back, but Keith jumped ahead, leaving Lance to plummet towards the ground.

“Ah!” He yelped on the way down, reaching out for something to stabilize himself, but finding only the back of Keith’s hoodie. They both landed face first in the dirt and remained there for a moment, groaning.

Lance was the first to jolt up to sitting, still filled with breathy giggles.

“Ha! That’s what you get.” He leaned over Keith, who was now lying on his back with his hands over his face. “Karma’s a bi-”

“Better catch up!” Hunk interrupted as he ran by his downed competitors.

“Oh, shoot!” Keith started to pull himself back up, but was held hostage by Lance’s firm grip on his pant leg.

Pidge ran by next, laughing hysterically.

“Really, Lance?” Keith successfully tugged his leg away and yet decided to stay and glare as Lance got back on his feet.

“We already lost.” Lance shrugged, and then threw an arm over Keith’s shoulders. “Might as well cross the finish line together.”

“Pft. Fine.” Keith shoved his hands into his sweatshirt pockets and looked the other way. His hair had gotten longer, especially his bangs, which now covered his right eye completely. Lance had to fight the urge to brush them behind his ear.

“Oh here they come.” Pidge was waiting for them, arms crossed and wearing a smug grin. “Regret suggesting a race yet, Lance?”

“Nah, not at all. I got to tackle Keith.”

“You did not.” Keith shoved himself out of Lance’s arm. “You  _ tripped _ me. There’s a difference.”

“Oh, right, sure.” Lance rolled his eyes.

“Will you two quit arguing and get in here? We’re supposed to be having a meeting.” Hunk called from inside the fort. The three outside relented their bickering and went in through the flap at the front. The fort was cramped with all of them in there, but was still impressive in size for something constructed entirely by the four of them. Hunk was the one who designed it: a tent-shaped wooden frame that leaned up against the thickest tree at the heart of the forest. They all helped put it together with sticks, logs, and a couple of two-by-fours held in place by nails and duct-tape. Keith suggested using a tarp to waterproof it, as Shiro often did when he made temporary shelters, and Pidge took it upon herself to figure out how to seal up every crack. The flap that served as a door had a zipper to close it, as did the window flap. Lance’s contribution was the two folding chairs that he used his birthday money to buy. He attempted to take a seat in the unoccupied one upon entering, but was nudged out of the way by Pidge.

“Winners get to sit in the chairs, remember?” She sneered.

“Ugh. I forgot I said that.” Lance flopped onto the dirt floor instead. He was already covered in a hearty layer of forest-grime from his fall, so he didn’t mind as much.

“So, what are we doing here again?” Keith asked, taking his place beside Lance.

“Right. So you all know how I pre-ordered the next issue of  _ Phoenix: The Rising Sun _ ?” Hunk reached into his backpack as everyone else held their breath. “Well, here it is!”

“Yes, yes, yes! Hunk you are the man!” Lance shot up at the sight of a bright and glossy comic book.

“Sh! Lance sit down! Let me look at the cover!” Pidge wrestled him out of the way and gasped when Hunk put the volume, still in its plastic covering, into her hands. “No. Freaking. Way. Guys, I think this is the reveal chapter.”

Lance gasped and pretended to faint on Keith’s lap. Keith pushed him off.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why we need to read it, like, now.” Hunk took it back and immediately ripped open the packaging. The famed comic was a recent sensation among the four of them and led to many a reading session in the fort where they would split up and voice the characters, and Lance would even act out the drama on occasion. He assigned himself the leading role: Starstreaker the local superhero whose magical cosmic powers gave him super strength and flight as his main abilities. No one actually minded that Lance snagged the lead, as Starstreaker’s self-centered, overzealous, and secretly sentimental attitude fit him to a tee. Keith was roped into voicing his sidekick, New Moon, who could teleport and summon an all-powerful, dual-bladed spear. Likewise, his shy, temperamental personality aligned with Keith’s. Pidge voiced the comic’s namesake, Phoenix, but as they’d only spoken about ten lines in the whole series, she tended to voice the villains as well because she thought they were most fun. Hunk took on any remaining roles as well as narration. He said he liked those parts because they let him have fun with assigning the minor characters silly voices. 

What was so enticing about this chapter, however, was that the cover featured New Moon staring down the shadow of a character that was no doubt Pheonix, and it was titled ‘Behind the Mask’. The whole mystery of the series lied in trying to figure out who this wandering, practically mute superhero was. It had been Starstreaker’s goal since chapter one, and now it finally seemed that the time had come.

“Okay, okay.” Hunk cleared his throat. “We join our heros on a misty evening in downtown Astrellasburg…” The story picked up with a typical one-off villain, only the main duo was able to put him away much faster than usual. Just as expected, Pheonix showed up in the second half of the chapter. The previous few volumes had put Starstreaker and New Moon up against a particularly devious foe, a recurring villain, who managed to capture New Moon and had Starstreaker in a bind. At the last second, Phoenix showed up and saved the day, but continued to refuse to reveal themselves. Now, New Moon was confronting Phoenix on the top of a skyscraper in the dead of night.

“You didn’t even let me thank you.” Keith was saying, Lance rocking back and forth in anticipation next to him.

“You were unconscious. Star-boy said your thanks.” Pidge added some sass to the line.

“Oh my God! She called him star-boy!” Lance exploded.

“You don’t  _ know _ they’re a she.” Pidge pointed out.

“I mean… it’s likely, but Pidge is right. We don’t know yet.” Hunk tried to get them back on track, but Lance still had a point to make.

“Oh come on! Phoenix is a girl and her and Starstreaker are gonna get together! That’s what the whole comic is leading up to!”

“Not necessarily.” Keith mumbled the words. “Starstreaker could end up with- uh... someone else.”

“Like who?” Lance rolled his eyes.

“Look, I don’t know. Can we get back to reading, please?” Keith snatched the comic away from Pidge, knowing it was his line next. 

“But-” He continued, “But I don’t even know who you are!”

Phoenix remained silent, but didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Usually they would soar away on their mechanical wings by now.

“Starstreaker, he… He’s been trying to figure you out for years. If not for me, would you reveal yourself for him? It would mean the world to him.”

A hush fell over the fort. This would be the fourth time one of the main duo had begged in person for Phoenix to reveal themselves.

“Very well.” Pidge read, practically trembling with excitement. “Take me to your base.”

And then, slowly and dramatically, she flipped to the next page.

Only, it was the inside back cover, advertising other comics owned by the same company.

“What? A cliffhanger!” Lance ripped the chapter away from Pidge and flipped through the pages frantically. “You can’t just name it ‘Behind the Mask’ and then not show us who Pheonix is!”

“Well, they did.” Keith shrugged.

“Hunk, you don’t happen to know when the next chapter comes out, do you?” Pidge implored him, leaning forward with her cheeks in her hands.

“Two weeks. And, don’t worry guys, I’m pre-ordering it as soon as I get home. Now if I can just-” He carefully slid the comic out of Lance’s hands and put it into his backpack. Lance feigned the face of someone who was about to cry.

“Oh! It’s just not fair!” He collapsed onto Keith’s lap again, laying a wrist over his forehead. “We were so close!”

“Geez, Lance. You need to get a life.” Keith chuckled, pushing him off so he could stand up.

“Aw, c’mon. Aren’t you disappointed too?” Lance revealed the smile under his melodrama.

“Well, yeah. But we’ll know who they are next time, so, that’s exciting.” Keith shrugged and Hunk nodded in agreement.

“Besides, we gotta get back to your place. Allura told us to be back by five and it’s four-fifty now.” He held the flap open with his arm, Pidge ducking out first.

“Oh yeah! We’re gonna have pizza for dinner!” Lance leapt out, a skip in his step, and Keith followed, shaking his head. He had to resist the urge to skip alongside him.

 

The next day was a lazy Sunday. It was late in the afternoon and Lance was still flipping through chanels on the television, trying to find something other than cooking shows to watch. Keith had long since turned around and rested his arms on the back of the couch so he could stare out the front window. It had been more than two years since Shiro had left him there and in that time whoever it was that lived across the street had moved away. The new owner ripped all the flowers out of the window beds and let the lawn go brown. It still had the bright yellow coat with white trim, but the colors had faded. Keith was studying one of the patches where the paint had rubbed off, when a car drove slowly into his peripheral vision. It was a black van with tinted windows and it was driving much too slow not to set off every alarm in Keith’s head.

“Lance…” He called for his attention softly, ducking as low as he could while still keeping an eye on the slowly approaching van.

“Yeah?” Lance quit his channel surfing, the television now displaying a medical drama. 

The van parked on the other side of the street. Keith pulled himself down and completely out of view.

“It’s them. They found me.” He started hyperventilating.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?” Lance grabbed Keith by the wrist, his eyes reflecting the panic. “Keith, what do we do?”

Keith gulped, trying to remember what Shiro would have done if he was there. But he wasn’t. And this wasn’t like before. He couldn’t just run away. He didn’t  _ want _ to run away.

“Allura! Allura! They’re here!” He sprung up and into the kitchen. Allura frantically put down her book and almost knocked her chair over behind her when she stood up.

“You’re kidding?” 

Keith shook his head. Allura put her shaking hands over her mouth and his heart sunk further. What would Shiro do? His mind raced. What would he do?

“Allura, you need to answer the door when it rings. Play dumb and buy us time.” The orders started spewing from nowhere. “Lance. Come with me. We need to erase any trace of my existence from this house.”

“Yes. Good. This can work.” Allura lowered her hands and Lance’s panic seemed to seep out with hers. “You two go. Now.”

They sped across to the stairs, praying that they couldn’t be seen from the front window. Their mission objective was clear: turn Keith’s room back into the guest room. Keith flicked the light on and immediately started pulling his clothes out of his drawers and dumping them into his hamper. Lance pulled open the hatch to the attic, easing the stairs down as silently as he could.

“Genius.” Keith said under his breath.

“C’mon.” Lance reached out for the hamper, marching upstairs once he had it. It only took a few minutes for Keith to dump all his belongings into a cardboard box Lance threw down, and just as he was sliding it into the attic, the doorbell rang. They froze, listening to Allura glide lazily from the kitchen to the living room to answer it.

“What about me?” Keith mouthed, barely whispering, to Lance.

Lance bit his lip, looking around the dark attic, until he spotted something and darted out of Keith’s view. Keith jittered impatiently while he was gone. Fragments of Allura’s conversation at the door that crawled their way upstairs set off a countdown to failure in his head.

And then Lance reappeared with something pink balled up his his arms. He threw it down to Keith.

“Change into this.”

 

“Up there? Oh, just the bedrooms. Mine, my brother’s, and a guest room.” Allura explained.

“Would you mind if I took a look?” The man in the dark sunglasses asked. He had a massive build and wore nothing but black. Allura noticed the scar than ran down from his right eye and couldn’t help but think he was exactly what she’d thought  _ they _ would look like. 

“Oh, not at all.” She shook her head.

“Which one is the guest room?” He didn’t wait for her to lead him up.

“The first door on the right.” She swallowed hard. It was the moment of truth.

He swung the door wide open and reached right for the lightswitch, but it illuminated nothing more than a well-made bed and empty furniture. He pulled open the drawers, checked behind the desk and lifted up the mattress.

Allura let out a little giggle.

“What on earth are you looking for? No one’s lived in this room for years.”

He set the mattress back down.

“My apologies.” He was silent a moment, rubbing his chin. Then he turned to her again. “Is your brother home?”

“Uh, yes he’s…” She sucked in a breath, glancing down the hall and considering her options. Before she could come up with a cover story, however, Lance came bursting out of his room, Keith in tow.

“Hey, Lura! We’re gonna go out to the skatepark, alright?” He was smiling like an idiot. Allura realized that Keith was wearing one of her old dresses and his bangs were brushed back and held in place with a matching pink barrett.

It took everything in her not to look surprised.

“This is your brother?” The man leaned out into the hallway.

“Yes. Lance, this is Mr. Sendak. He’s a police officer responding to a call from our neighborhood. He’s just going to take a quick look around the house.” Allura snapped back into the game. “Would you mind if he took a look at your room?”

“That won’t be necessary.” He put a hand up to stop her, then gestured to Keith. “Who is this?”

“Oh, right!” Lance chuckled, pulling Keith forward by wrapping an arm around his back. “This is Kelly. She’s my girlfriend.”

Keith stiffened. Lance wiggled his eyebrows at the man.

“Right.” He crossed his arms and looked Keith up and down. He had the same unamused expression, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking with his eyes completely concealed. Finally, he released his stern posture and turned back to Allura.

“We’re done here. The call must have been a prank.”

A collective sigh was released as soon as the van drove away.

“I can’t believe that worked!” Keith shared a smile with Lance, and the two of them began laughing out of pure relief. Allura’s stern glare stopped them.

“What were you thinking? You shouldn’t have let him see Keith at all.” She shook Lance’s shoulder, reintroducing panic into his complexion. “He may be gone for now but there is no way he is not extremely suspicious that this is Keith!”

“Hey, I’m right here.” Keith grabbed the hand she was pointing at him and set it back at her side.

“Right. Sorry.” Allura rubbed a hand over her face. “Look, all I’m saying is that-”

“We messed up. I know.” Keith removed the barrett, allowing his bangs to swing back over his eye. “It was a nice idea, Lance, but Allura is right. He still thinks I’m here.  _ They _ still think I’m here.”

Lance crossed his arms and stared hard at the floor.

“Are you sure that was even one of them?”

“Yes, Lance.” Allura seemed to hesitate for a second, but soon spilled. “Shiro said… when they came for Keith, they’d probably pretend to be part of law enforcement.”

“Yeah. It’s their cover story for civilian interaction.” Keith nodded. “It lets them basically do whatever they want so long as the real cops aren’t around.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?” Lance looked between them, betrayal adding volume to his voice. “What if- What if one of them approached me when I was alone and got me to spill about Keith? I don’t know anything about them but I know everything about Keith! Isn’t that dangerous?”

“I mean-” Keith’s words caught in his throat. Luckily, Allura had her own response readied.

“Lance. Now is not the time to get angry about what I have and haven’t told you. The only thing you need to do is not tell anyone anything about Keith they don’t already know.” She waited for him to nod then turned to Keith. “And, just to be safe. You need to lie low for a while. You’re not going to school this week.”

“Right.” Keith whispered his response.

The house was silent after that.

 

Lance couldn’t help but watch the clock from the corner of his eye in his math class, tuning his ears to the ticking second hand rather than the teacher going over the homework. Several of his teachers had approached him that week to see if he was okay, or rather, they asked him if he was alright whilst handing over the pile of work that Keith was missing. He knew he was out of it, but every time it surprised him that they’d actually noticed. Hunk and Pidge showed concern as well, but that was less surprising. After all, he was able to explain to them exactly what was going on.

It had occurred to him, after Allura made such a point about him being oblivious, that she would probably be angry if she knew that he had told Hunk and Pidge why Keith was really there. If she did know, she most likely would have forbade him from telling them anything else. However, because Lance was left to his own judgements, he spilled everything Monday morning.

Hunk had given him a hug and told him to pass it on to Keith.

And he did. Lance was grateful that the new circumstances hadn’t done an damage to his relationship with Keith, but he couldn’t say the same for Allura. Between her hostility and the confinement of Keith ‘laying low’, Lance felt as though they had regressed back to how things were when Keith first showed up. It felt like drowning.

Lance was shaken from his musings by a knock on the door.

The class turned to look and the teacher set down her dry-erase marker to go and answer it. From the slender window beside the door, Lance could see the edge of a man in black clothes with massive arms. He shifted his weight, allowing the right side of his face to slide into Lance’s view. He wore sunglasses and a scar.

“Hunk.” Lance hissed under his breath, trying to call his attention from across the room where his assigned seat was, but by then the door was open and every student in the room was too enthralled by the badge the man was pulling out of his pocket to notice.

“Lance?” The teacher walked over to his desk and kneeled down. “The policeman needs to ask you a few questions. Can you step outside quickly?”

Lance gulped, then nodded.

“Okay. I’m sure it’ll just take a moment.” She coaxed him up and kept a hand on his shoulder all the way to the door. Lance glared up into those pitch black sunglasses, trying to make out anything at all.

The door shut behind him.

“Hello, Lance.”

“Hello, Mr. Sendak, if that is your real name.” Lance could barely hold back the fire in his throat.

“Why don’t we skip the pleasantries.” He leaned down mockingly. “I’m sure you already know why I’m here.”

“Nope! Haven’t the slightest clue.” Lance smirked up at him.

“That girl Kelly. She’s Keith, yes?” He continued despite the taunt.

“Are you saying my girlfriend is actually a boy? I think I’d know if-”

He snatched Lance’s wrist into his massive grip, silencing him instantly. Lance realized he needed a game plan fast.

“I don’t care if he’s your girlfriend or not.” He hissed. “I know you know where he is and you’re going to tell me or I’m going to have to do some bad, bad things to you to get that sister of yours to talk.”

Lance gulped. He let his eyes shift right, searching the nearest door for anything that could help. Isn’t that Mr. Iverson’s class? The wheels started turning. Doesn’t Pidge have that class now?

“Well… Good luck with that!” He yelled as loud as he could manage. “You’re not going to get anything out of me! You will not take Keith from us, you- you sick son of a bi-”

And then he pummeled him to the ground.

“Fine. That’s how we want to play?”

Lance could feel the cold grip of handcuffs on his wrists, but as he turned his head back to the door of Mr. Iverson’s class, he could see that his plan had worked. The entire class was watching him get dragged away, and right in front with her knowing eyes plastered to the window, stood Pidge.

“Oh, the game is on.” Lance chuckled to himself.

“Shut up before I cover your mouth too.” He walked him briskly down the hall and out the front door. The van was waiting there, and the closer Lance got the harder it was to breathe. The black windows stared back at him, revealing nothing but his own terrified reflection.

The man released one hand to open the door, and shoved Lance forward with the other.

“Get in.”

The leather seat was hot and Lance was already sweating from the stress. His skin stuck to it in an instant. The man had to walk around to the other side of the car, however, so Lance took the opportunity to rip his thighs off the seat and pull his hands around under his legs. He couldn’t remove the handcuffs, but having his arms in front seemed better somehow.

He gave the man an innocent smile when he opened the driver’s side door.

“Fine. Get comfortable for all I care.” He shuffled into the car and slammed the door, then took out his cell phone. “It’s going to be awhile.”

He dialed a number and waited for the other end to pick up. Lance watched the school’s entrance carefully whilst listening for any hint in their conversation.

“Yes, this is Sendak. Put me through.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t make out the other end. All he heard was a mumble and then a long pause until a lower voice asked something.

“Yes, sir. I’ve got the brother here.”

Lance started searching for movement in the windows, but most classrooms had their shades down.

“No, sir. He’s a stubborn one.” Pause. “No, sir. We’re at the school. I could take him to an ulterior location for interrogation.”

Lance sucked in a breath, looking for anyone or anything.

“Well, I doubt he knows more than the sister.”

And then something moved in the rear-view mirror.

“It’s likely, sir, but not certain.”

It was Pidge. Lance tried to conceal his relief at the sight of her peeking around the bushes and waving to get his attention. Once she knew he saw her, however, she revealed the real plan: Lance’s skateboard. 

She slowly rolled it out into view and then sent a questioning gaze to Lance.

“No, sir I haven’t-” The man sighed, putting his face in his hand. Lance discerned that he was plenty distracted and gave Pidge the slightest nod. She crawled out across the sidewalk, just far enough so she could reach the edge of the driveway, and then set down his skateboard. Finally, with one hearty push, she sent it rolling right over to the van where it slowed to a stop.

Lance looked back at the man from the corner of his eye and saw him nodding as the person on the other end delivered an endless speech. Then, he focused on the door. The lock was down, but if he pulled it up, would the door open or was the car rigged for carrying prisoners?

“Alright, I understand, sir.” The conversation seemed to be wrapping up. Lance closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and decided to take the risk.

As quickly as he could manage, he pulled up the lock, pulled out the handle, and kicked open the door.

“Frickn’ kid.” The man slammed his own door open, but Lance was already on his board and gliding right out of the drive way. Pidge gave him a thumbs up from the bushes and then sprinted back to the side door. The man saw her, looked back to Lance just as he swerved out of view, and then brought the phone back to his ear.

“Yeah. He got away. But I have another lead.”

 

Hunk tapped his foot under his desk and looked back over his shoulder at the door every few minutes. He heard Lance yelling in the hallway, he knew what this was about, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He didn’t even know if Lance was coming back.

The classroom phone rang, so the teacher put down her marker again and went to answer it.

“Hunk. They need you down in the office.”

The class turned to look at him. Whispers threaded their way through the desks; everyone knew Hunk was Lance’s best friend and now they were both in trouble. It made quite the rumor.

“Right. Should I, uh, bring my stuff?” He tried to act like everything was normal but in his own head he was screaming over and over again about how not okay any of this was.

“No, just go down.”

Hunk nodded and headed for the hall. The whispers got louder only to disappear behind the shut door.

Alone in the silent, locker-lined hallway, Hunk realised he had a choice to make. Waiting for him in the office was no doubt one of  _ them _ : a hardened gangster who was going to make him spill everything he knew about Keith. But in that moment, he was alone. No one could stop him from slipping out of the school and running to Lance’s house. It was close, after all.

He turned towards the other end of the hall, knowing the side door was just around the corner. It occurred to him, however, that Lance might already be running over to his house. If they caught Lance, why did they need him?

That was what tipped the scales. Hunk decided that he would face the threat if it meant buying Lance more time.

Only, when he walked into the conference room the secretary directed him to, he saw Pidge deflate onto the table, groaning.

“Noooo, Hunk! You idiot!” She spoke through her hands. Hunk realized there were cuffs on her wrists.

“So glad you could join us.” The man in black shut the door behind Hunk and grabbed his wrists before he could move away. He was cuffed and seated in an instant.

“Now. You’re going to tell me once and for all if Keith lives in this town under the care of Allura at 34 Riley lane.”

“And I already told you, you’re not getting squat out of us!” Pidge exploded before Hunk could get a word in. The man simply stood up, reached into his coat, and pulled out a roll of duct tape.

“So, you’re not going to talk, little girl? Very well. I can work with that.” He stretched out a length of the tape, wrapped it around her mouth, and ripped the end in one fluid motion. Hunk startled to his feet and threw his hands up to cover a gasp as the man took out a knife next.

He leveled it to Pidge’s neck. Her eyes went wide, pleading.

“No no no no no. Please don’t do this, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” Hunk’s posture melted into a puddle as tears bubbled up in the corner of his eyes.

“Does Keith live here in this town under the care of Allura at 34 Riley lane.” He repeated himself calmly.

“Yes! Yes.” Hunk nodded. His cheeks were completely wet now.

“Has Lance most likely returned home to warn him?”

“If he’s not here, then, yes.”

“And have they most likely taken off by now?” 

“I- I don’t know? I guess?”

“Where would they be going?”

“I don’t know! I’m sorry! Please, they haven’t told me anything about an escape plan, just… Just let Pidge go! Please!” His knees buckled under him and he started sobbing into his hands. The man relaxed the hand with the knife and sighed.

“I’m not going to hurt her. Sit down.”

Hunk nodded, trying to compose himself once he was back in the chair.

“Look. I only have one more question for you, and once you answer it you and your friend can go back to class and pretend this never happened.” His tone was softer; he was talking down to Hunk. “I won’t even tell the organization you were involved in this case if you promise not to tell anyone else that I interrogated you. I mean, you don’t want to be involved in this scary, messy world, do you?”

Hunk sniffled, then shook his head.

“Right. Can you shake on that?” The man held out his hand, but Hunk didn’t shake it.

“Are you going to hurt Keith?” He asked instead.

The man chuckled.

“No, no. We just want to keep an eye on him, that’s all.”

Pidge started to yell something though the duct tape, but a keen glare from the man quieted her once more. He turned back to Hunk and extended his hand again.

“Deal?”

“Deal.” Hunk caved, awkwardly placing one of his cuffed hands into the man’s grip.

“Now, tell me. Where can I find Allura?”

 

The rain splashed from branch to branch down the massive pine tree until it battered down in heavy waves onto the thin, tarp-lined roof of the fort. The window and door had long since been zipped up and the chairs hand been squeezed together in the driest corner of the dirt floor so Lance and Keith could sit next to each other.

When Lance came crashing through the front door at one o’clock in the afternoon, Keith had known something was wrong right away.  He used a pair of bolt cutters from the shed to cut open the handcuffs as Lance explained everything. Then, t hey poured the notebooks and folders out of their backpacks and stacked them full of food and clothes: necessities. They grabbed the sleeping bag from the closet and ran down the street into the woods. 

Once they’d deposited everything in the fort, they crept back to the forest’s edge and watched as dark vans kept pulling up to the house. Every time a new one parked and the doors slid open they held their breath, expecting to see Allura led out in handcuffs. 

But they didn’t catch her.

Instead, they spent hours deliberating on the front porch, until the sky turned scarlet along the tinges of the setting sun and a mass of grey clouds advanced over the forest. Keith had been watching for hours.

“C’mon. Let’s just hole up in the fort. Nothing’s gonna happen if they haven’t found her by now.” Lance tugged at Keith’s hoodie.

“Not yet. They still could.” Keith responded. Lance sighed and went back to shuffling his feet, but it wasn’t a minute later that the men seemed to be in a flurry.

“Something’s happening.” Keith whispered, drawing Lance back over to watch with him. Eventually they calmed and Keith could see that they had all gathered around one agent who held his phone out in front of himself. 

“They’re negotiating. With… Allura?”

And then a clap of thunder rung over the horizon.

“Keith!” Lance started forward, grabbing onto Keith’s arm involuntarily. They looked at each other for a second, and then Lance pulled his hands back to himself.

“Okay. We can head back to the fort.” Keith yielded. Lance gulped, the words nearly caught in his throat.

“Thank you.”

Hours passed; the rain reached them and the sky went dark. Every so often, the thunder would roll over them ten times louder than the water on the roof. Lance had pulled his knees to his chest and kept a tight grip around the flashlight that illuminated the cramped room.

Keith checked his watch.

“It’s nine o’clock and they still haven’t found us.” He spoke over the din. “The storm is probably serving as good cover. Do you wanna just, go to sleep?” 

“Huh?” Lance turned his head, then nodded. “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

Keith pushed his chair back into a full lean and reached over to grab the sleeping bag. Lance watched him pull at the thick, green bundle for a moment and then realized he should do the same thing with his chair. Only, he had trouble pushing the back just right with only one hand free.

“Oh, c’mon,” He said under his breath and paused to place the flashlight next to his leg. As soon as he had his hands in the right place to push back the chair, however, a clap of thunder erupted above the forest.

“Ah!” Lance startled, snapping the chair back too fast and sending the flashlight flying off the chair and into the wall of the fort. It smacked square against one of the sturdy wooden planks and suddenly everything was black. Lance heard the flashlight land somewhere in the mud on the floor, but soon there was nothing but silence and darkness.

“Whoa. Lance, are you okay?” Keith quit fiddling with the sleeping bag.

“The… flashlight. I don’t know where it landed.” His words were choppy and interspaced with shaking breaths.

“We can look for it in the morning.” Keith offered, but Lance started to shake his head fervently. Even in the darkness Keith could make out the drastic gesture.

“No no no no. This is so bad.” Lance’s voice deteriorated further. “We’re out here all alone in the middle of a storm and they’re probably looking for us and now we can’t even see anything and-”

The thunder drummed again.

“Agh!” Lance’s scream sent a knife through Keith’s heart.

“Lance! Lance, it’s alright!” He reached out, feeling for Lance’s quivering form in the dark. He was balled up again with his face tucked between his knees, so Keith placed an arm across his back and patted his shoulder with the other hand.

“I can’t do this.” Lance shuddered. “I wanna go home.”

“I know. But… we can’t.” Keith stayed hovering over Lance a moment before he decided to retract his arms. Lance didn’t say anything, so Keith reached back over for the sleeping bag and started to cover himself up. Once he was settled, however, the soft whimper of someone attempting to cover up their weeping caught his ear. He sat up.

“Lance? Are you alright?”

“No! Why would I be alright?” The next breath came in with audible distress; he was done hiding it. “What about this situation is alright?”

Keith couldn’t answer. Instead, he hung his head and listened to Lance blow his nose and wipe his eyes before finally laying down. A small burst of thunder sounded somewhere far away, making him flinch and let out the tiniest gasp. 

But his scream played itself again and again in Keith’s mind.

“I’m sorry Lance. I’m so, so sorry.” Keith put his hand over his closed eyes to keep the water in. “This is my fault. I never meant for you… I wish you didn’t have to be a part of this mess.”

Lance sat up.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I should have asked Shiro more questions… I don’t know how to do this. I’m going to mess up and drag you all down with me. I  _ already _ messed up and-”

“Stop it.”

Lance put his hand on Keith’s knee. Keith released his eyes and felt the tears escape down his cheeks, leaving two wet lines in their wake.

“I’m scared, okay? I’m terrified. But now is not the time to think like that.” Lance unconsciously squeezed at Keith’s knee. “If I had to, I would run from them with you for forever. As long as it took to keep you safe. It’s just…”

“The thunder?” Keith finished his sentence.

Lance groaned, taking his hand back and covering his face.

“It’s so dumb. I thought I was over it but now here I am screaming like a little girl because of the freaking thunder.”

“I’m sure it’s just because we’re out here in the dark in a... shack that can barely keep the rain out.” Keith started to smile despite himself. 

“Yeah. I hope so.” Lance went silent for a moment. “Keith? Will you… hold my hand?”

“Um. If you want?” Keith lifted his hand up and Lance grabbed it right away.

“Thank you.” Lance didn’t seem to feel the room start to spin like Keith did; he spoke too casually. “I think I’ll be able to sleep if I can at least know where you are.”

“Oh. Right.”

They settled back down into their chairs and Lance reached over to pull the sleeping bag half onto himself. Their tightly-wrapped hands hung in the space between the chairs just a few inches over the dirt floor. Lance finally seemed soothed; he only tensed slightly at the next thunder clap, but Keith could barely close his eyes.

Lance was just scared of the thunder, Keith reminded himself. There was no other reason why he was holding his hand. Was there?

Soft snores filled the air and Keith let out a long sigh. Lance had the right idea. They would need to be well rested if they planned on evading capture the following day. Keith settled into his chair, careful not to pull on Lance’s arm too much and closed his eyes gently enough that he could almost feel his lashes tuck in against his cheeks. The next time he opened them, the chirping of birds had replaced the clatter of rain on the roof. 

He looked around in a fog and then startled when he remembered that Lance was sleeping next to him. His eyes darted down in front of him, a gasp of excitement slipping in between his lips, only to deflate out of him a second later. 

Lance had turned over, taking the sleeping bag with him, and removed his hands completely from Keith’s reach. Still, Keith couldn’t keep in a bittersweet smile at the sight of him sleeping there with a sliver of morning light creeping up his side, across his face, and landing in his hair where it scattered into gleaming fragments among his bed head.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring when nearby footfalls brought him back to reality.

“Lance, wake up! Someone’s coming!” He shook him awake.

“What? Who?” Lance pushed himself up, still spinning slightly and batting his eyes to combat the hold his sleep had on him.

“I don’t know but we gotta-” Keith froze at the sound of a deep, male voice.

“Over here!” The footfalls turned into running.

The boys looked at each other, sharing panic in their gaze, and then Lance swung his arms around Keith without hesitation.

“I’m sorry Keith.” He breathed into the hood of Keith’s sweatshirt.

“I’m sorry too.” Keith closed his eyes, letting his hands reach up and hold onto Lance’s arm. Someone skidded to a stop just outside the fort and unzipped the door.

“Lance! Keith!” Her voice startled them off each other.

“Allura!” 

She barreled into them, arms outstretched, and pulled them into a tight embrace right there on the dirt floor. They stayed that way for what felt like an hour as the sunlight streamed in from behind her. Keith opened his eyes and found himself staring at her dyed, white hair glowing like a halo in the light.

“Oh my God. I was so worried about you.” She finally loosened her grip and put Lance’s head in her hands to pull him in for a spattering of kisses on the forehead. He started giggling so hard his eyes squeezed shut.

“And you, you little troublemaker.” She turned to Keith and rustled his hair lovingly. Keith laughed a bit until he noticed Lance staring at him, still grinning like a madman. 

He forced his happiness back down his throat.

“Is everything alright now? Are you alone?” He asked instead. “Are we… safe?”

Allura sighed, then nodded slowly.

“Yes. Well, yes and no. I had to make a deal with them. It’s… a bit complicated. And not optimal. But it’s the best I could do.”

Lance’s smile started to wear off, and then then dropped into horror at the sight of men’s feet shuffling outside.

“No. No, Allura, how could you?”

“What? Lance, no it’s not-” She reached for him, but Lance reached out for Keith instead.

“You sold him out, didn’t you? They’re going to take him away, aren’t they?”

“No, Lance. No.” She pulled his hands back into her own grasp and looked down into his eyes. “I would never.”

“Then what’s the deal?” Keith bit his lip.

“The deal is…” Allura set Lance’s hands down. “We have to let one of them live in the house. To keep an eye on you.”

 

Lance and Keith were perched on the couch, staring out the front window and waiting for his arrival. Allura had gone to bed for a well-deserving nap after staying up all night negotiating with ‘the organization’, as they’d asked to be called. She was able to explain briefly to Keith and Lance how she got the upperhand; she called them of her own accord and threatened to contact the real police if they didn’t cooperate with her. It was her own personal theory that the organization was actually afraid of government interference, and as it turned out, she was correct. 

It was a stiff operation, neither side wanting to give up anything, but after hours of careful play, they came to an agreement. Allura’s demands were simple: Keith, Lance, and herself were not to be hurt or separated. The organization decided all they really needed was tabs on Keith’s location. They never said it explicitly, but Allura figured that they’d lost track of Shiro altogether and merely wanted to know where Keith was so they would have blackmail when they found him again. 

Two agents waited on the porch but were to leave as soon as the designated ‘babysitter’ arrived. 

“Do you think they’re sending their best agent?” Lance asked, still staring out at the empty street.

“No. My guess is they’ll do the opposite. All this guy needs to do is keep track of where I am and have his cellphone on so they can call him when they find Shiro.” Keith theorized aloud. “It’d be a waste of a position for their best agent.”

“Well, whoever he is, I think we should have some fun messing with him.” Lance snickered to himself. “I have so many pranks in mind.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but chuckled behind his hands.

“Is that him?” Lance questioned the blue convertable that rolled into the driveway. The man in the driver’s seat wore the same dark sunglasses as the agents, but his bright orange hair and hawaiian shirt betrayed any mysterious appearance. The agents on the porch stood up, addressed him briefly, and then headed for their van parked on the street.

“Huh. I guess that is him.” Keith watched him approach the door, and then hopped off the couch to go answer it with Lance in tow. He cleared his throat before addressing him.

“Are you, uh, agent Coran?”

“That I am, little man!” He spoke with far too much enthusiasm, lifting his shades to reveal smiling eyes. “And you must be Keith!”

“Well… yeah?” He looked at Lance, just to make sure he was equally confused.

“You look quite a bit older than the old picture we have on file! But, that’s to be expected.” Coran pushed through them into the living room and set down his suitcase on the table. Lance followed tentatively.

“So… you’re the babysitter, huh?” He looked Coran up and down, realizing that he was wearing khaki shorts and sandals to complete his tourist look.

“That’s what they’re calling me! I think it’s a good fit. I’m pretty good with kids if I do say so myself.” He gave Lance a wink. “Now, what’s your name, little chap?”

“Lance?” He couldn’t help but pose it as a question.

“Ah, yes! Lance and Allura, the owner’s of the safehouse. I see now.” Coran nodded, hand on his chin. “Well, since I’m going to be staying with you for quite a while, I suppose you’ll want to know my cover story.”

“Uh…?” Lance looked back at Keith and received the same expression: deep confusion.

“Well, I put a lot of thought in it, and I think the simplest explanation would be to say that I was your uncle!” He nodded triumphantly. Lance burst into laughter.

“Yeah. You’re my uncle? And who in their right mind would believe that we’re related?” 

“No, no. Not by blood of course.” Coran started to stroke his mustache. “I married into the family.”

“Right, okay, so where’s my aunt?” Lance indulged him, finding it too hilarious not to.

“You’re  _ uncle _ died tragically two years ago in a car crash.” Coran went on, starting to act out the drama of it. “But! I’d made such an impression on the family that you couldn’t refuse me when I asked to stay here for a short while. I faced a great business failure and sunk into depression after your uncle passed and I needed somewhere to ground myself so I could back on my feet!” He struck a pose, far too engulfed in the monologue, and then turned back to Lance. “What do you think?”

Lance threw his head back and laughed so hard he had press his arms into his chest to keep himself steady. Keith sighed.

“I’m sorry, but that is the worst cover story I think I’ve ever heard.” He delivered the insult with apathy.

“Well, excuse me!” Coran seemed to take immense offence, leaning down so he could place an accusatory finger on Keith’s chest. “What’s your cover story, then? If you’re such an expert!”

Keith moved a step back.

“A good friend asked Allura to take care of me for a while.” His apathy turned to smugness. “ _ I _ don’t need to lie.”

“Oh, man!” Lance slapped his knee, separating the tension between Keith and Coran. “This guy is hilarious! Maybe this isn’t so bad after all.”

“Well, I’m glad somebody’s happy to have me around.” Coran picked up his suitcase. “Now, where should I put my things?”

“Oh, uh…” Lance looked around for a moment and mentally shifted through the rooms in the house. “Actually, we’re kinda out of bedrooms.”

“There’s the couch.” Keith offered.

“The… couch.” Coran deflated slightly, but soon perked himself back up. “Very well! The couch it is!”

Lance started laughing again. They spent the next hour or so just talking to Coran and, somehow, Keith felt disarmed by him. He had to keep reminding himself that this cheery, mustached man was one of  _ them _ . 

Eventually their conversation was interrupted by the phone ringing, so Lance picked it up.

“Hello?” Pidge asked cautiously on the other end.

“Pidge! What’s up?” Lance figured she was calling on her cell phone; she was the only one of them who had one yet.

“Is everything okay, Lance? Did they take Keith?” Hunk jumped onto the line.

“No, no. It all worked out. You guys wanna come over?” Lance dismissed his concern.

“Yes! Can we?” Hunk responded frantically, only for Pidge to grab the phone back before Lance could answer.

“Are there still agents at your house? I biked by there after school yesterday and it was swarming with them!”

“Uh, just one, actually.” Lance looked at Coran from the corner of his eye. “But he’s… cool.”

“What?” Pidge drew out the word.

“Yeah! Just come over and see for yourselves. Okay?” With that, Lance hung up and relayed the conversation to Keith. They considered waking Allura to see if it was alright for them to come over, but Lance decided she needed her rest more than he needed her permission.

Some fifteen minutes later, Hunk and Pidge arrived in the driveway on their bikes.

“Hey guys!” Lance greeted them on the porch.

“Lance!” Hunk sped forward, tossing his bike to the ground so he could engulf Lance in a hug. “Oh, I thought you were dead!”

“You spoke to him on the phone. Of course he’s alive.” Pidge rolled her eyes.

“Oh c’mon, Pidge. Tell me you weren’t at least a little worried too.” Hunk let go of Lance on one side to face her.

“I mean… yeah. I was pretty worried.” She got quiet, eyes down, and then jumped forward into their open hug.

“Aw, you guys!” Lance gushed, squeezing them tight and then stepping back to look at their smiling faces. “I’m okay now. And…” He urged Keith out onto the porch. “So is Keith.”

“Keith! Com’ere buddy!” Hunk pulled him for another massive hug. Pidge chuckled and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“We did a lot for you, you know,” She said once Keith was free. 

“Yeah?” He asked, still catching the breath Hunk had squeezed out.

“Oh, yeah. Tell ‘em about the interrogation, Hunk. That was something else.” Pidge smiled manically.

“It was terrifying, that’s for sure.” Hunk shook his head, remembering.

“Oh no, what did they do to you?” Keith’s stomach dropped. Luckily, Hunk was able to assure him that no one got hurt, and, once Pidge had regaled the entire tale, Keith seemed to believe him.

They went inside after that, and found themselves equally fond of Coran. They talked until noon when Lance decided to make some stovetop mac and cheese for lunch. Allura was still asleep, so he divided it between the five of them and they ate in the living room.

Keith talked the least, as usual, but he found himself laughing more and more as the hour dragged on. He held his empty bowl, stained with neon cheddar, in his lap and looked around the room. It was one of those moments he kept having ever since that evening eating ice cream on the front porch with Lance two and half years ago: the moments where he realized again and again how nice everything was. Coran was the opposite of what he expected. He didn’t feel in danger at all with him in the house. Pidge was probably the funniest person he knew. Some of his favorite memories were of playing videogames with her. Hunk was dripping in niceness. He never felt left out with him around.

And then there was Lance.

Lately, he couldn’t think about Lance without feeling a twisting in his gut. The niceness felt like thin ice when he looked at the ocean in Lance’s eyes and realized how fast they made his heart beat. 

But after the previous night, holding hands in the dark and preparing to run away together for forever, it was so, so much worse.

 

The rain came back a few days later, but the thunder did not accompany it. Instead, a steady shower washed over the town that Wednesday afternoon. Little creeks sprung up on roadsides and a hum of noise floated over the rooftops. Keith was alone in his room, reading the assigned English book but not making very much progress. He kept closing his eyes to better listen to the soothing rumble of the rain.

A different sound woke him from wandering in his own mind: the sound of Lance’s window shuddering open.

He slid his book closed and left it on the bed so he could walk over to his own window. It was difficult to tell from his angle, but if he pressed his face into the glass he could see Lance’s arms and face leaning out into the rain. Keith smiled, remembering that Lance said he used to do this when he was younger. The story went that Allura forbade him to after he caught a cold from it in fourth grade.

Keith stopped thinking and simply unlocked his own window, snapping each latch down and then shoving the bottom panel up. The rain speckled into his hair and onto his cheeks.

“Enjoying the rain?”

Lance seemed startled at first, but soon smiled at Keith.

“Yeah.” He chuckled.

“It is nice, isn’t it?” Keith reached out one of his arms to catch some of the water in his cupped hand.

“Yeah.” Lance’s voice went lower. Keith looked at him from the corner of his eye and recognised that furrow in his brow and sadness in his eyes.

“I didn’t… ruin the rain for you? Did I?”

Lance turned away. His hands gripped the edge of the window tight, and then suddenly released.

“No.” He looked back up at the sky and started to lift up his arms. “No, nothing could ruin this. I won’t let it.”

“Wha-” Keith blinked in surprise as Lance hoped his legs over the side of the the window so he was sitting on it’s edge. He turned an impish smile to Keith, and then spun around, dropping his legs and falling halfway down to the ground so just his hands remained holding onto the window sill. A moment later, he was standing firm on the ground in the back yard.

And then he looked up at Keith and held out a hand.

“Uh-” Keith sucked in a breath, staring down with wide eyes. Soon enough, however, he took the invitation. 

“Haha! Yeah!” Lance cheered when his feet landed in the grass. “This is how you feel the rain.”

“We’re gonna get soaked.” Keith ran a hand through his hair and found it dripping wet.

“I already am.” Lance shrugged. Keith crossed his arms and sighed, resigning himself to watch Lance spin around on the grass. His white shirt clung to him and his jeans were almost black in color they were so wet, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. He just held out his arms and leaned his head back to feel as much of the rain as he could.

“You know, this reminds of me of that scene in _ Phoenix _ ,” Keith said absentmindedly, and then rushed to clarify. “I mean- the one where, uh, Starstreaker and New Moon see each other in civilian clothing and still manage to recognise each other.”

“Why? Because it was raining in that scene?” Lance stopped spinning to look at Keith.

“Well… yeah?” Keith looked at his feet. There was a gap of silence until Lance spoke again.

“Hey, Keith? What did you mean before, when you said that Starstreaker might end up with with someone other than Phoenix?”

Keith gulped.

“Exactly that. Just that, maybe, they won’t end up together.”

“Well, I get that part. But you said he might end up with  _ someone else _ .” Lance pushed. “Who?”

“Oh, c’mon!” Keith broke into a yell. “You know who! Don’t tell me you don’t see it!”

“Whoa, jeez, sorry. I was just asking.” Lance put up his hands.

“Ugh.” Keith put his face in his hands. He might as well keep digging the hole.

“It’s New Moon. I think Starstreaker and New Moon should… get together.”

“Why?” The question angered Keith at first, but when he looked up at Lance’s genuinely curious eyes, he softened.

“Well… because they clearly like each other. They make all that witty banter when they fight and they started doing everything together once New Moon became Starstreaker’s sidekick. I mean, I don’t know that there’s actually anything... _ romantic  _ there, but New Moon actually knows Starstreaker. Phoenix is a stranger. Who’d want to date a stranger over a friend?”

Lance didn’t answer.

“Well, that’s Starstreaker’s choice to make, I guess. I just think… I mean, I  _ really _ think New Moon likes him. As more than a friend.” Keith bit his lip. “Do you think Starstreaker could like New Moon too?”

“I…” Something seemed caught in Lance’s throat. “Maybe Starstreaker doesn’t know how he feels. Maybe… he needs see for himself that Phoenix isn’t meant for him before he can realize that there’s someone else.”

They met eyes for just a moment, and then looked away, each trying to hide their redding hues.

“Well.” Keith put in the final word. “Starstreaker should know that New Moon is there for him. Whenever he’s made up his mind.”


	3. 9th Grade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance, Keith, Hunk, and Pidge celebrate completing their first year of high school by going to an amusement park. It's supposed to be the 'best day ever', but all good things must come to an end.  
> Luckily, some bad things come to an end too.

**9th Grade**

The air was thick with the sounds of screams: excited screams that rang from the top of every roller coaster and glided on the tongue of every child being handed a cloud of cotton candy or a stuffed bear larger than themselves. 

It was the first day of summer vacation at the largest amusement park in the state.

Lance was the one who first suggested the day trip, but since then Keith, Hunk, and Pidge had latched onto the idea and helped come up with what they were now calling the ‘best day ever’ plan. To celebrate completing their first year of high school, the gang got up early and met up at Lance’s house where they piled into Coran’s convertible. They got breakfast at the best diner in town and then sped down the highway for three hours until at last they could spill out of the vehicle, run across the desert of a parking lot, and walk through golden gate of Destination Fun. So far they’d discovered that Pidge had a never-ending craving for churros, Hunk was impossibly good at winning the rigged games, Keith was capable of downing an entire slushie in less than a minute if he was dared to, and Lance could pull the funniest faces for roller coaster drop shots. 

It had been nearly five years since Keith was left in Allura’s care, and even though it was commonplace now for him to lie awake at night and wonder if Shiro was ever coming back, it was so easy to forget all that in the daytime. Especially when he was romping around between arcades and ferris wheels with Lance, Hunk, and Pidge. They were all taller now, as much as they liked to joke that Pidge hadn’t grown an inch, but so much more had changed, especially between Keith and Lance.

Legend has it that they became official when they kissed in the bathroom at the eighth grade dance.

The four of them sat now, a buffet of carnival food reduced to crumbs on paper plates, at a purple-painted picnic bench. It was nearly seven o’clock and the sun was low enough to start seeping out its orange hues into the sky. Parents with little kids were leaving now, but they still had an hour before Coran was supposed to take them home. They planned on getting back at ten and having a sleepover in the living room.

“So what do you say?” Keith put down his milkshake, deciding he was too full to get all the melted whip cream at the bottom. “Best day ever?”

“Oh, definitely.” Hunk picked up the last french fry and finished it off.

“Yeah, says the guy who almost threw up.” Pidge elbowed him jokingly.

“Yes, but, that was ten terrible minutes out of, what, twelve hours of fun? So I’d say it evens out.” He contested.

“Well… I’d say it’s pretty close, but...” Lance gave Keith a mischievous look. “I think I know what would make it better.”

“Ew. Go make out somewhere else.” Pidge caught on.

“Geez, fine.” Lance spun his legs out from under the table, snatching Keith’s hand on his way up.

“Wait, um-” Keith stood up to follow, only to tug back on Lance’s arm so he could stay at the table. “Do you want us to throw away our trash, or..?”

“No, no, I got it.” Hunk waved him away. “You two have fun.”

Lance shared a knowing smile with him, and then led Keith back through the amusement park. Keith let himself be pulled along at first, looking at the way the low sun in front of them cast a crown of light in Lance’s hair. As they got farther from the noise of the crowds and rides, however, he jumped a few steps up to Lance’s side. They smiled giddy smiles at each other and adjusted their hands so their fingers interlocked.

“Where are we going?” Keith asked, too busy drowning in Lance’s eyes to look ahead.

“Mmm…” Lance titled his head back and forth, bouncing ideas around. “Behind the arcade? It’s private.”

Keith laughed.

“Sure, anywhere’s fine with me.”

Lance flushed, his smile growing impossibly wider. 

When they finally whipped around the corner into the back-alley of the amusement park, they were so impatient they practically crashed into each other, eyes closed and arms reaching around to squeeze the other in tighter. This part of the park wasn’t supposed to be seen by visitors: the concrete walls were bare and the lot was littered with dumpsters. It wasn’t a pretty sight for a make-out spot, but when they at last pulled their faces far enough apart to open their eyes, they didn’t have room to look at anything but each other. 

“Isn’t it so much fun to be young and dumb and in love?” Lance swooned.

“You gotta stop saying that, Lance.” Keith scolded between giggles.

“And why’s that? It’s true.” Lance turned his face so he could kiss Keith just under his left ear, letting his nose get tickled by the hairs that had fallen out of his ponytail.

“Because.” Keith shifted his arms into a tighter grip around Lance’s shoulders, pulling his neck closer to Lance’s mouth and Lance’s ear to his own. “You get to say  _ it _ without really saying it.”

Lance laughed, got a few more neck kisses in, and then pulled himself back up so he could look at Keith. His hands glided from Keith’s waist to his hips and then back up a bit so his fingertips slipped under Keith’s shirt.

“Well, you know what they say.” He started to lean in for another kiss. “Actions speak louder than words.”

Keith slipped his hand down and over Lance’s mouth, leaning back in his arms so the distance between their faces and chests felt more like the grand canyon than a couple of inches. Lance lowered his eyes, defeated, and let his cheeks flush.

“You know me better than that.” Keith lowered his hand and Lance let out a sigh.

“Oh… Fine.” He couldn’t look at Keith, but his hands spidered around to Keith’s back to pull him in, gapping the distance. Keith bit his lip in anticipation.

“You should already know this, but… I love you, you idiot.”

And then Keith started jumping up and down, squealing with delight. Lance was so surprised he didn’t even try to reaffirm his grip on Keith’s back and just let his ams float in the air around the jumping boy. That was, until, Keith stopped suddenly, let Lance get a quick look at the joy written all over his face, and then cupped his hands around his cheeks and peppered him with little kisses. Most of them missed the mouth, but Lance melted into the delightful barrage anyway and let his arms simply rest around Keith’s waist.

“I love you too.” Keith snuck the words in between kisses, finally letting them last longer than half a second. 

“Well, if I knew that was gonna happen I would’ve said it sooner.” Lance laughed once they pulled back again.

“Oh, shut up.” Keith let his face fall into Lance’s chest.

“I thought you prefered words, though?” Lance joked. Keith reached up, smacking his hand over Lance’s face without looking to see where it landed.

“I swear to God if you ruin this-”

“I’m kidding!” Lance burst out laughing, shaking his head to free himself of Keith’s grasp. Keith relented, throwing his arm back over Lance’s shoulder, and the two of them stayed there for a long moment, just holding each other. Keith closed his eyes and took a deep breath, pretending that they smelled like something better than sweat and sunscreen. When at last he opened his eyes and looked out beyond the alley, he startled up.

“Whoa, wait. Lance, is that… Coran?”

“Huh?” Lance turned to look where Keith was pointing. Coran was there, done up in his obnoxious hawaiian shirt and brightly colored shorts, but that wasn’t the alarming part. The fact that he was talking to five men in dark suits and sunglasses was what made Lance’s eyes go wide with terror.

“No.” He tensed up, reaching over for a grip on Keith’s arm. “No, I won’t let them take you.”

“Mm. Let’s go.” Keith nodded starkly and spun around, leading Lance back up towards the entrance at a brisk pace. They found Hunk and Pidge at the horseshoe toss game.

“Guys, we’ve gotta get out of here.” Keith spoke low once he had their attention.

“What the deal?” Pidge questioned, her arm still poised for a toss.

“We saw a bunch of agents talking to Coran. They must be here for Keith.” Lance explained, voice hushed but urgent.

“Oh shoot. This is bad.” Hunk put his hands over his mouth. Pidge dropped the horse shoe.

“What are we waiting for, then? Let’s move.” She urged everyone towards the gate.

“Wait, how are we leaving? None of us can drive!” Hunk rambled as they exited the park and started sprinting across the parking lot. “And what about my stuffed animals? I left them on that bench!”

“Sorry, Hunk. I’m sure you can win more another time.” Lance gave him an apologetic shrug. 

“And as for driving, leave it to me! My dad lets me take the van for a spin in the parking lot sometimes.” Pidge assured them with a thumbs up.

“We’ve just got to get there before-” Keith looked back at the entrance and gasped at the sight of the agents storming out. “Shoot! They’re coming!”

“Go! Go! Go!” Lance sped up the pace, but was cornered by the doors of a van in the parking lot slamming open and a second group of men spilling out. He let out little yelp and veered out of the way just in time. Thinking he got the better of them, he looked back over his shoulder, only to see that one of them had tackled Keith to the ground and another had Hunk by the back of his shirt. Lance skidded to a stop and stared terrified at the scene, just as Pidge did, frozen on the other side of it all. The first five agents caught up to the fray and Coran pushed his way to the front.

“Whoa, whoa. There’s no need to be so rough with the kids.” He implored them. The one holding Hunk let him go and he stumbled back towards Pidge.

“Orders are orders.” Mumbled the one on top of Keith as he took out a set off handcuffs and began fastening them in place. “He’s coming with us.”

“Wha-” Lance was suddenly frantic. “No! No, Coran! You can’t let them- they can’t just-”

They pulled Keith up, then, and started forcing him towards the open doors of the van. He looked back over his shoulder, revealing the terror in his eyes.

“Keith! No!” Lance sprinted forward, but two of the agents held him back. “You can’t take him! Stop! Please! Keith… no… no, please…” His screams devolved into sobs. The door slammed shut and the van started up.

“Out of the way.” The remaining agents shooed everyone aside so the vehicle could back out of the parking space and then cruise out of the lot. Lance reached out after it, but was crying so chaotically he couldn’t form any more words. When the van was out of view, the agents released their grip on him and he melted to the ground.

“Is Keith- Is he- Is he gone for good?” Hunk asked between sobs of his own. Pidge nodded along, the only dry face out of the three of them, but her mouth was glued shut and eyes stuck wide open. Her sickly pale complexion completed the petrified look.

“I… I don’t know.” Coran finally answered.

“Get them back home. We have more important things to do.” One of the agents waved the others away and headed for another dark van parked a few spaces down. Coran nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

The second van peeled off. It was getting dark, the sun not yet set but so close that its light had ceased to reach the other half of the sky, leaving it a rich hue of navy. The lights from the park started to turn on, each slice in the ferris wheel lighting up one at a time. Lance stood up.

“How could you?” He seethed, racing forward into Coran so that his clenched fists slammed onto his chest. “You let them take him! It’s your fault he’s gone!”

“Lance. Lance!” Hunk ripped him away. “No it’s not! They would have caught him either way.”

“But if Coran had-”

“No!” Hunk shook him silent, then melted a bit himself. “There’s no point in blaming anyone. But, I’m sorry. If that counts for anything.”

“Hunk.” Lance let his head fall onto his shoulder. New tears he didn’t know he still had forced their way out, and kept coming even as they walked to the car. Pidge reached out and held his free hand, joining the silent procession, and gave it a tight squeeze before letting go so she could sit in the front. Lance and Hunk piled into the back, letting their hands meet in the empty middle seat where Keith had sat that morning. Coran sighed, looking at their solemn faces, but simply started up the car and rolled out onto the highway. 

Lance didn’t know how much time had passed, but the stars were out when Coran finally spoke.

“Pidge, take out your phone.” 

“Uh, why?” She questioned, cautious to break the silence.

“I need you to send a text to Allura.” His tone was abnormally serious.

“Okay…” Pidge took out her phone, sending a confused glance back to Hunk and Lance before opening the texting app. “What should it say?”

“Uh, just one word: where?”

Pidge gave him a questioning look, but as he decidedly kept his eyes focused ahead on the highway, she resigned herself to the task and sent the simple message. Lance and Hunk were attentive now but remained silent and waiting.

“Has she replied?” Coran asked.

“She’s typing…” Pidge teetered in her seat for a moment. “Oh! Here we go. 67 Hendrick street in Dover.”

“Well then. Looks like we’re taking the next exit, that was good timing on my part.” Coran chuckled to himself. The kids waited, wondering if he was going to explain, but all he did was take one hand off the wheel to reach into his own pocket and take out his phone.

“You served me well, friend.” He kissed the screen, back to his usual perky self. “But it’s so long for now!” With that, he tossed it out the window and swerved the car over into the exiting lane.

“Wha- Coran! Your phone!” Pidge was the first to articulate her confusion.

“Forget the phone, where are we going?” Hunk chimed in as the car turned off the highway.

“We’re meeting up with Shiro, that’s where we’re going!” He shouted, inducing an excited gasp from Lance. “Coran’s switching sides, kiddos!”

 

The previous summer, when he had first begun dating Keith, Lance sought out Allura’s company alone. He was feeling down and didn’t know why, not quite the sickly drowning feeling he got when things were bad; it was more of a soreness of the heart. Instead of explaining this to her, however, his feeling formulated themselves in a different question.

“Allura, how do you do it? How do you deal with Shiro being, just, gone?”

She set down her work and turned around, leaning against the kitchen counter. 

“Well, mostly I just distract myself.” She shrugged.

“Oh.” Lance looked down, an a apology for reminding her stuck down in his throat.

“But, sometimes, that doesn’t work. You can’t just forget things like that forever, right?” She went on. “When that happens, I think it’s better to remember good things and good things only. Conjure up a memory of when we were happiest.”

“That doesn’t… make you feel worse?” Lance questioned.

“Not if you think about it the right way.” Allura tapped Lance’s nose and then turned back to the counter to resume chopping potatoes for dinner. “You just have to let yourself feel as happy as you were then, and, before thoughts of it all being lost come in, you have tell yourself that it’ll be that way again.”

Lance nodded slowly.

“Not to sound cheesy, but, hope is a powerful thing, Lance.” She picked up the cutting board and crossed the kitchen, sliding them into the water boiling on the stove. “Now, would you mind setting the table?”

That conversation had cheered him considerably, and he went on thinking that, while it was nice to know, he’d never have to use that coping mechanism for himself. 

But, as they drove down the dark back roads of Dover, he found that he had been mistaken in that thought.

He closed his eyes, grasping desperately at the advice she’d given him that night. He searched his mind for a memory: a time when they were happiest. He kept thinking back to kissing behind the arcade, but it was impossible to play that scene without its catastrophic end. Finally, it came to him.

Two months ago, Coran drove the four of them to a con. They’d been to a few before, but this time Keith was determined to go in costume: Lance as Starstreaker and himself as New Moon. He’d been wanting to cosplay them ever since the 67th issue where the two superheroes famously kissed. 

Reading that issue was a wonderful memory of its own, sitting in the fort with his boyfriend of three months and discovering that their comic-counterparts shared the same feelings.

But the con was something more.

Keith never stopped smiling the whole day. They went from booth to booth, panel to panel, hand in hand the whole time. They got pictures, adorable pictures, of the two of them hugging, kissing, and just goofing around. When they were alone at home, Lance started kissing him before they could take off the costumes. Keith giggled, overjoyed, but his laughter dissolved into sobs.

“Wha- Keith? What’s wrong?” Lance had asked, holding Keith’s head in his hand.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Keith had smiled, pushing dimples into his wet cheeks. “I’m just so happy. This… this means so much to me. I don’t think you realize how long…”

He never finished that sentence. He just laugh-cried tears of joy into Lance’s shoulder and let himself melt into his embrace. Thinking of that moment, that day, never ceased to make Lance giddy; he supposed it was just the idea that someone loved him  _ that much _ .

The feeling was dampened, but there, when he replayed the scene in his head.

“Here we are. Looks like an abandoned gas station.” Coran announced their arrival.

“Alright! Let’s do this.” Pidge hopped out of the car right away, followed shortly by Hunk. Lance took his time unbuckling his seatbelt and opening his door.

You will feel like that again, he reminded himself. Hope is a powerful thing.

And then his feet were on the ground, walking forward.

 

The motorcycle pulled up at 10:30. They’d been waiting around back, the kids swinging their legs off the bench while Allura and Coran leaned against the long-locked door. The smell of gasoline still lingered, but the grassy area beyond the pumps had gone to weeds. A ‘for lease’ sign swung on rusty hinges: the only sound in the dead of night until he drove in and puttered to a stop in front of them. The bike was black and shiny to match his helmet, and they all held their breath as he stood up and pulled it off.

“Looks like I’ve got quite the audience.” He broke into a reckless grin.

“Shut up.” Allura raced forward, catching him by surprise, but it didn’t take long for him to let his helmet drop to the ground so he could wrap his arms around her. The kids looked away, but let them kiss nonetheless.

“Your hair!” Allura finally noted once they’d pulled back.

“Oh, yeah.” Shiro reached up and rubbed the new white tuft. “That happened, I guess.”

“I’m jealous, actually.” Allura giggled. “ _ I _ have to bleach mine.”

“Heh, yeah.” Shiro looked at her lovingly for another moment, the two of them swinging softly in the other’s embrace, until he looked up and surveyed the other faces. Soon enough, he furrowed his brow.

“Wait, why’d you bring all them and not Keith? I don’t even know who…” He trailed off,  the realization sinking in with a sad glance from Allura. “Is he…?”

“Just today, they came for him.” She stepped back. “They must have got wind that you were stopping by for a visit and decided it was time.”

“But, why did they know where he was?” Shiro asked frantically. Allura looked away.

“You didn’t tell him?” Lance stood up.

“I hadn’t spoken to him in five years until yesterday.” She snapped back.

“Told me what?” Shiro stepped in between them.

“That, um, two years ago they found him, and I struck a deal.” She confessed. “They’ve had an agent living in our house so they would always know where he was.”

“Why would you ever agree to that?” Shiro shook his head.

“Because maybe I don’t agree with your methods!” Allura stared him down, suddenly full of fire. “All this running goes nowhere! If you really wanted to get rid of them, you would face them! Now, your stubborn little head might not be able to realize that, but I figured it out forever ago, and I told you, and you wouldn’t listen to me. So you shouldn’t be surprised that when you put Keith in  _ my _ care, I would do things  _ my _ way. Yes, I let an agent live in our house for the past two years, but you know what? The whole time we were safe and we were together.” She bit her lip, forcing back the wetness in her eyes.

“I-” Shiro tried to get a word in, but didn’t know what to say.

“So yes, they have Keith now. But we have six people ready and willing to get him back. To end this for good.” She looked up at him and pressed a finger into his chest. “We do things my way, and no one ever gets left behind again.”

He hesitated for a second, mouth open and brows knit, until at last he lowered his head.

“You’re… you’re right. I’m sorry.”

“You can make a better attempt at an apology later.” She crossed her arms, marching back over to Coran and the kids. “Right now, we need a plan.”

“Mm.” Shiro nodded, looking composed again. “What have got? Who on this team is known to the organization?”

“Well, they’re very aware of Lance and Allura, but Pidge and Hunk should still be under the radar. I never mentioned them in any of my reports and I haven’t seen their names in any of our files.” Coran took the question upon himself. “And they might still think I’m on their side, at least, until they try to contact me and I don’t respond.”

“On their side?” Shiro froze. Allura cleared her throat.

“He’s the agent that’s been living with us, but he’s not with them anymore and, quite honestly, I’d trust him with my life.”

“Me too.” Hunk stood up, firm in his conviction.

“Yeah, me three.” Pidge joined him.

“Make that four.” Lance smiled at him and Coran looked surprised for a moment, then softened.

“Honestly, you kids…” He shook his head.

“That’s… that’s good!” Shiro perked up. “You must know where they’ve taken Keith.”

“I have an inkling, yes.” Coran nodded.

“And how we can take them down?” Allura added.

“Uh, perhaps.” He shrugged.

“Then what are we waiting for!” Lance burst out, looking around the circle with wild eyes. “Let’s do this!”

 

Hunk could feel the sweat under his collar as they waited in the dark. The trees at the north entrance were sparse enough that he could somewhat see the concrete building in the middle of the field, but still provided a due amount of cover. The complex looked abandoned, not a single window adorned with any sort of light, but Hunk could still feel the watch of eyes he knew were searching for him, Pidge, and Shiro.

They’d split up into teams, with Lance, Allura, and Coran approaching from the rear through the cornfield. It gave them considerably more cover, but they were the ones who were supposed to actually get inside. 

Hunk and his team were there to serve as a distraction.

“Are you sure someone’s gonna come?” He asked, quiet as he could manage.

“Patience.” Was Shiro’s only response. Pidge rolled her eyes, making Hunk smile, but the two of them stayed quiet.

Finally, the whir of an approaching vehicle stirred them to attention. The headlights cast stripes of light through the trees that rolled up and down as the van went slow over the bumpy dirt road. Shiro nodded for the plan to commence. Hunk took a deep breath and held it in his throat, along with his fears.

“Ah! Stop!” He shouted, bursting out of the trees and in front of the van, making sure to bang the hood before he toppled to the ground. It came to an abrupt stop in front of him, and the driver came bursting out to see who he’d run over. Before he could even get a glimpse at Hunk, however, Shiro came out swinging and sent him to the ground with a solid right hook to back of the head.

“Holy hell!” The agent in the passenger’s seat scrambled for his phone, but Shiro still had the element of surprize on his side. He whipped out a tazer, leaped into the car, and shocked the phone right out of his arm.

“Sorry, but we’re gonna be needing this van.” Shiro smirked once he had the agent pined against the window, using the handcuffs from his belt to restrain him. “Everything good out there?” He called out the open door.

“Yup! You knocked him out cold.” Pidge called, Hunk and her dragging the driver back towards the van.

“Alright, in the back you go buddy.” Shiro tossed his agent back and then helped the kids get the other one in beside him. The conscious agent was too shocked to say anything for a while, but as he got a better look at Pidge in the dark, he started to look more and more confused.

“You… already have Keith?” He finally asked.

The trio smirked at each other.

“Oh, yeah. That’s me. Keith.” Pidge took her place in the passenger’s seat, twisting a bit of her newly-dyed black hair knowingly.

“Hunk, would you put some duct tape over that guy’s mouth?” Shiro handed him the roll from the driver’s seat before starting up the car.

“Right, don’t want him blowing our cover.” Hunk stretched out a length of tape, but hesitated for a moment, remembering Pidge in the conference room two years ago. Was it wrong? His heart beat faster. No, not if they were going to take Keith away. “Sorry, man. Today just isn’t your day.”

He let the tape slide over the agent’s mouth, then turned back to front, arms resting on Pidge and Shiro’s seat backs so he could look through them and out the windshield.

They were just getting started. 

Shiro pulled the car up to the side of the building, the headlights revealing nothing but blacked-out windows. No one came outside, so he pulled the van to a creaking stop along the left wall beside a fire-escape ladder. The engine whined itself silent and their only lightsource flickered out with it. 

“To the roof. Let’s go.” Shiro urged them out through the passenger’s side door. They hopped right out of the van and onto the ladder; their feet didn’t touch the ground at all.

And then there it was, waiting for them on the roof.

“Ready to cause a ruckus?” Pidge asked, a fire in her eyes at the sight of the helicopter. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Hunk responded, a bit damper. 

“Good, because we’ve got no time to lose.” Shiro pulled a small metal tool out of his pocket, spun it in his hand as he kneeled down next to the helicopter, and then got to work forcing the door open.

Hunk teetered on his feet until the sound of a door slamming open startled him still.

“They’re coming!” He shook Shiro’s shoulder.

“I’ve almost got it.” He threw off Hunk’s hand and had the door open a second later. “Alright everyone in!”

“They’re on the roof!” An agent called from below.

“Did they break in? Where’s Keith?” A second one demanded.

“Hold on. Let me get Prorok on the line-” he was cut short by sound of an explosion on the first floor of the building. Smoke billowed out of the now-broken window on the right side.

“The server’s down!” His voice broke out in alarm.

“Good timing, Coran,” Shiro said under his breath just as he got the helicopter to hum to life. Hunk shut the door, muffling the yelps of shock from the agents outside and the yells of those pouring out of the building, until the whirring of the helicopter’s blades drowned them out completely.

“Up we go!” Pidge announced one the skis tilted up off the roof. Shiro accidently lurched forward off the building, sending Hunk right off his seat.

“Oh, geez…” He groaned, grasping at his stomach.

“You okay buddy?” Pidge asked.

“Yup. All good.” Hunk held up and unconvincing thumbs up.

“Just be ready when the time comes, kid.” Shiro returned their attention to the task at hand. He flew purposefully slow, inching over the dirt road. Soon enough, the vans started peeling out of the complex, five in total.

“Good, they took the bait.” Shiro sped up the pace, the vans following suit below him.

“Do you really think they think we have Keith?” Hunk questioned.

“Well, maybe not. But I’m sure it’s adding to the confusion. The less they know of what’s going on, the better.” Shiro responded.

“Should we start getting ready?” Pidge interrupted them.

“Yes, right. Let me get lower.” Shiro steered them down until they were hovering just over the first van in the line. It swerved slightly, but refused to back down the chase. Hunk and Pidge readied themselves at the door; Hunk with a hammer and Pidge with a taser.

“I’m opening it!” Hunk warned them, forcing the door aside with one massive shove. Pidge clung to the handle on the right, Hunk on the left. 

“Here goes.” He threw the hammer down, praying that it would hit it’s target. Miraculously, it smashed right through the sunroof and landed somewhere in the vehicle with a satisfying thud. The van swerved again, more violently this time, the passengers inside clearly alarmed, but as the fields beyond the road were now more of a swamp land, it had nowhere else to go.

“Ready?” Pidge turned a wild glance to Hunk.

“Ready.”

Everything moved in slow motion after that. They were falling through the air, the helicopter creating wild gusts of wind that blew their hair into their faces, and Hunk could see Pidge below him with her legs poised to glide through the opening and into the van. 

She disappeared through the hatch, hopping out of the way for him. He saw the flashes of the taser as he descended into the car: little bursts of electricity on the necks of each agent she could reach that stunned them still. He felt some kind of pain in his knees as they landed hard on the floor, but he was too focused on the agents to look down and check what it was.

He sprung forward, ripping the handcuffs right out of the first man’s belt and locking them into place before he could wake up. He did it two, then three, then four times, until the only one left was the driver. He was cursing profusely, hands trapped on the wheel and feet on the pedals to keep the van moving forward, but in an immense panic at the state of his fellow agents. Hunk pulled the unconscious man out of the passenger's seat, cuffed him, and tossed him into the back. Pidge piled into the front, taser aimed at the driver’s neck as she climbed over him. Hunk couldn’t hear what he was saying, just that the man was yelling at her as he pushed into the front after her. 

Finally, she let the taser do it’s job and pressed her own foot down onto the gas pedal as quickly as she could to keep the van running. They swerved back and forth as Hunk got the driver out from under her until at last the van was theirs.

Hunk turned his eyes to the road, then, still laser focused. This was his final task.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter with one hand as the other rolled down the window. They hadn’t marked the spot, but he knew they were close, so he waited until he got a whiff of gasoline and then reached his arm out of the car, open flame and all. When he released, the road beneath them burst into flames. From the rear view-mirror he could see it eating up each line of spilled gasoline: everything that was left at the abandoned station. 

The vans swerved to a stop in the face of the hellish display.

“We did it,” Pidge said, breathless. Hunk snapped back into the present and immediately keeled over with pain.

“Frick! Ah! My leg!” His finger-tips were sticky upon contact. “Not good, not good!”

“Hunk! What’s wrong?” Pidge nearly turned the van off the road.

“I don’t know.” Hunk puffed out his breaths and forced his eyes open to inspect the damage. There were cuts all over his legs and one large shard of the sunroof sticking out. A slow trickle of blood ran down from each of the wounds, swirled about by his fingers and depositing their fluid into his socks.

“Shoot. Messy landing, I guess.” He forced out the words.

“Aw, geez, Hunk. Sit back and breathe, buddy. I’m taking you to the hospital.” Pidge turned out onto the highway.

“You… you can’t drive though. What if the police… I wouldn’t want...” Hunk melted back into his chair as he became more and more incoherent.

“Not the time to worry about that.” Pidge gave him a sad look out of the corner of her eye. “I’m not letting you bleed out.”

“Heh. Okay.” He closed his eyes. “I just hope… Lance found Keith.”

 

The sound of the explosion rattled through the cornfield. Lance didn’t need to see it to know that it had done the necessary damage, so he bounded forward as fast as his legs would carry him, Allura not far behind. Coran opened the door just as they were reaching the complex and urged them forward.

“He’s on the third floor!” He pointed to the stairs, allowing the two of them to turn without losing any speed.

“Where on the third floor?” Allura questioned once they were one flight up.

“I couldn’t tell. The labels on the video feeds were too confusing.” He replied apologetically.

They passed the second floor.

“Fine. We’ll split up and search. Lance, you stick with me.” She grabbed the back of his shirt to keep him at the third floor landing until she and Coran caught up. 

“Okay, okay, let’s go!” He urged them forward into the hallway. The building had plain white walls with sporadic black doors and the lights were an unnaturally pale blue. It had a distorting feeling similar to an abandoned hospital.

Lance ignored all this, however, and focused on Keith. Allura slammed open each door, ready to take on any agent that was waiting inside, but each time they found nothing but a dark, empty space. His heart swelled with anticipation and deflated into disappointment, each time more extreme than the last until everything rested on the final door.

“Nothing. Damn.” Allura flicked off her flashlight and rushed out, leaving Lance to stare into the dark. He searched the space uselessly, desperately, as the drowning feeling engulfed him. 

“I don’t get it. How could they move him that fast?” Coran and Allura’s discussion floated over to Lance, finally drawing his eyes away. They were ten feet down the hall, but behind them, creeping out of one of the open doors, was a woman in all black.

Held closely at her side was Keith, bound at the wrists with rope and duct tape over his mouth, but eyes screaming out for help.

“Th- There!” Lance’s vocal chords finally caught up to his brain.

“Wha-” Allura spun to face the woman, and she darted around the corner towards the stairs.

“Oh no you don’t!” Coran yelled, already leaping through the air to tackle her. She didn’t talk; she just fought him off with one arm whilst holding Keith tight in the other. However, when Allura joined the fray, he was able to wiggle free from her grasp.

“C’mon!” Lance grabbed his hands without hesitation and made for the stairs. They could hear heavy footsteps from above: more agents approaching.

But they just kept running, their trust placed firmly in Allura and Coran’s ability to protect them. They crashed out through the back door and nearly slided down the hill into the cornfield. Their bodies plowed into the maize, shoulder’s scraping the dirt floor as they made a rough landing. The stalks swung around them in a buzz, frantic as their panting breath, until at last both seem to calm.

“Let me get that.” Lance reached out, ripping the duct tape off Keith’s mouth as carefully as he could.

“Lance! Oh, thank God.” The words spurted out of him as Lance went to work on loosening the rope. “I thought I’d never… You- You’re here! I’m gonna be alright!”

“Yes! Yes you are!” Lance joined in, his voice just as frantic.

“You saved me!” Keith’s chest shook, but whether it was with laughter or sobs Lance couldn’t tell. He supposed it was a little of both.

“No, we all did. We’re gonna get you out of here now.” Lance finally ripped off Keith’s restraints and turned a smile up to him. Keith broke out into into an even bigger grin and suddenly his hands were cupping Lance’s face and pulling it down into his own.

The kiss, however frantic and loving, had to be cut short when the door slammed open once more. They looked up, saw the woman from before, and broke out into a sprint.

“C’mon! We’ve just gotta make it until Shiro picks us up!” Lance pulled Keith along with him against the friction of the waves of corn that smacked against their legs and arms.

“Shiro! He’s here?” Keith forced out the question between heavy breaths.

“Yeah, he should be.” Lance struggled out the response. Keith opened his mouth to say more, but ended up gulping down air instead; the need to escape outweighed any desire for communication. They just kept running, sweaty hand in sweaty hand, until they cleared the cornfield. 

“Just a... second...” Keith keeled over, Lance taking the chance to throw his head back and close his eyes. They stood there, gasping, for a meager minute before the sound of the woman’s approach grew too loud.

“C’mon. We can do this.” Lance reach out for Keith’s shoulder. He straightened up and took in the sight in front of him.

“A lake?” He whinned.

“You’d rather get captured again?” Lance tugged on his arm, pulling him towards the shoddy wooden dock.

“Keith!” The woman’s voice stunned them both to attention.

“No! Let’s go!”

They ran over the creaky boards and dived into the water without any hesitation. It was warm on the surface, like bath water, but any part of the body that dipped too far down felt the chill of the long-undisturbed lake. Keith’s head splashed above and below the surface, his eyes barely open as his arms crashed overhead over and over, pulling himself closer and closer to his goal. He could feel his shirt clinging to his skin and his shoes got kicked right off his feet and into the water below, but he kept on plowing across the lake with Lance at his side.

With his mouth full of dirty water, it was hard not to think of the time Shiro had taught him to swim. It was calm then, deep in a pine forest with nothing but the sounds of birds chirping and squirrels scuttling in the branches overhead. It was a small pond, not a lake really, but Keith was a small boy. His brother could stand in the water, with it only reaching up to his chest, but Keith had to flap his arms to stay afloat. Shiro held him up when he couldn’t, though, and told him calmly to keep trying. That he’d get it eventually. And even though he swallowed the water and didn’t know how to rub his eyes so he could see again after going under, he trusted that voice.

The voice he hadn’t heard in five years, but was waiting for him if he could just get to the other side of the lake.

“Sweet land!” Lance yelled, queuing Keith in that his feet could touch if he just turned himself back to standing.

“Is she following?” Keith turned around, hopeful due to the lack of splashing he heard, but nearly had a heart attack when he saw her standing there, on the dock, just done putting her hair in a ponytail and throwing off her shades.

And then she dove in.

“She’s following!” Lance said it for him, and the pair raced forward, awkwardly wading through the water to the shore. The field beyond was knee-length grass, which extend for what seemed like infinity until at last it was cut off by a distant highway. They ran, slower than before on their tired legs, until they couldn’t anymore and began to walk.

“She’s gonna… catch up.” Keith tried to force himself forward, but to no avail.

“C’mon Shiro. Where are you?” Lance looked up with pleading eyes.

“How is he even-” Keith began to question, but the distant hum cut him off. Lance looked just right of the highway, excitement written all over his face, and Keith followed his gaze. The approaching helicopter became clearer and clearer the closer it got.

“Is he in there?” Keith was in awe.

“Yup. I mean, I hope so.” Lance chuckled to himself. 

“I just hope he gets here before she does.” Keith turned back to check in on the woman’s location. She’d just about reached the shore. 

“He will.” Lance didn’t seem concerned, he just kept looking up, but as the minute dragged by, his smile faded. “He’s… not going as fast as I thought he would. Is she…?”

“Oh, she’s coming.” Keith started to back up.

“Keith!” She yelled again. “Get back here right now!”

“C’mon let’s go!” He grabbed Lance’s arm and attempted to run once more, but their legs just wouldn’t move as fast as they wanted them too. She got closer and closer and closer until Keith tripped over himself in the panic and brought Lance down with him. She was upon them in seconds.

“Keith, you will not run from me!” She tackled him, the chase not seeming to have sapped any of her energy at all. “You will do as your mother says!”

“What?” Lance startled up, trying to make sense of the fray before him. Her hands were practically around Keith’s neck: the collar of his shirt was stuck in them, and he was scratching desperately at her arms and her face in an attempt to free himself.

“You’re not my mother!” Keith shrieked.

“How dare you! I carried you inside me for nine months! I gave birth to you!” She seethed back.

“And then what? You couldn’t be bothered to see me for the next fifteen years?” Keith argued. Lance was frozen, just looking between the two of them in confusion.

“That was not my choice! Your father stole you from me!” She picked him up by the collar and slammed his back into the dirt below. He let out a yelp of pain but continued to fight her nonetheless.

“And for good reason! You’re insane to work with these people!” He was losing. Lance felt a rush of courage and dove in to try and separate them.

“Get off of hi-” He didn’t make it close before she swung one hand up and right across the side of his head. The blow sent him to the ground with spotty vision and a coarse groan.

“Stay out of this!” She barked at him before turning back to Keith. “And you - you nasty child - I will not let you become a traitor like that foul brother of yours or that idiot who called himself your father!”

“Can’t betray something I was never a part of.” Keith managed the words through her grasp. He’d stopped wriggling; his body was too weak to continue.

“You were  _ born _ of part of this.” She shook him one last time, then released her hands to reach into her belt. 

The wind was picking up, and even though his hearing was nothing much but a ringing, Lance figured Shiro must have been over head with the helicopter. What he could hear, however, was the burst of a gun firing over and over again.

“No! No!” Keith screamed, the words grating violently at the back of his throat.

There was a crash. The wind stopped. Lance blacked out.

 

His hearing came back first; sounds of muffled talking, little wheels scraping on tile floors, and a distant beeping came in one at a time. When he tried to open his eyes, everything was a bit too bright and he had too close them again. He became aware of the pounding in his head then, and he rolled over with a groan at the annoyance of it.

“Lance?” Keith’s voice cut through his confused senses. He forced his eyes open and found that worried face staring down at him.

“Hey.” He gave him a little smile.

“Oh, you’re awake! You’re really going to be okay.” Keith leaned down, hands fluttering around Lance’s face and over his shoulders until at last he wrapped them under his neck and hugged him loosely. Lance realized he was lying in a hospital bed.

“I told you everything was gonna be alright.” He returned the flimsy embrace.

“No, you told me _ I  _ was gonna be alright.” Keith released him, but took a tight hold on his hand instead.

“Same difference.” Lance shrugged. Keith rolled his eyes. 

“Coffee and good news!” Pidge said, bursting into the room. Lance turned to see that Shiro had been sitting in a chair by the door and now accepted the warm cup of coffee with a smile. Pidge kept the other for herself and began to take a sip, but spit it back into the cup when she saw Lance.

“Double good news!” She scuttled over to his bedside, looking no worse for wear. The cheap hair dye was even starting to rub off at the tips. “You’re up!”

“Yeah. I’ve got one hell of headache, though.” Lance sighed.

“Mm. That would be the concussion. The doctors said you’d probably have one.” Pidge finally took that sip, though it was more of a long chug.

“Oh.” Lance dampened slightly and received a sorry nod from Keith. Pidge wiped her mouth with her wrist and got back on track.

“Anyways, back to that good news I was talking about. Hunk just got out of surgery and everything’s a-okay! I just saw him as they put him in that room down the hall. He’s a bit drugged up, but conscious, and he says he’s okay.”

“Wait, surgery?” Lance questioned.

“Just stitches. On his legs.” Keith jumped to clarify.

“Yeah, he got some glass shards in them. Nothing too bad, but, he lost a lot of blood because he kept moving around after it happened.” Pidge explained, not thinking too much of it, but stopped when she law the look on Lance’s face. “Um, he’s gonna be fine, though, so…”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Lance looked away.

“I’m really grateful, you know. For what you guys did for me.” Keith held his hand tighter, kneading Lance’s fingers with his own. “I’m safe now.”

“Like, for good?” Lance’s eyes flickered over to Shiro. He knew what the next part of the plan was; Allura was supposed to call the police and have them finally arrest whatever members were left at the complex and go chasing after the ones on the road. Coran should have left by then, still too tied to the organization to be able to claim his innocence once the police got involved. He had to assume that all that had happened in the hour or so he’d been out, but nothing was for sure anymore. He didn’t even know how Shiro was still alive or how they’d all gotten to the hospital.

“Yes, Lance. Yes.” Keith nodded. Shiro put down his coffee.

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

Keith looked down at Lance’s hand instead of back at his brother.

“See, we only took down one of their bases. Sure a lot of them got arrested, but there’s plenty more out there. Really all we’ve done is made sure they’ll stay out of the state for the next five to ten years. Which is great, of course, but we didn’t take them down. The best we can hope for is that they give up on hunting me.”

Lance nodded dolefully and a long silence ensued. Pidge finished chugging her coffee and excused herself, but even then Keith wouldn’t turn around to look near the door.

“Is something wrong?” Lance whispered, turning his hand in Keith’s so he could run his thumb over his knuckles.

Keith licked his lips mindlessly and shook his head. Lance decided to stop skirting the issue.

“Why aren’t you happy to see your brother?”

“I- I am happy-” He started whispering, but sucked his breath back in and finally turned around, knowing Shiro could hear them. “I  _ am _ happy to have you back, it’s just… everything is confusing now.”

Shiro sighed.

“You met your mother, didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Keith bursted out in anger only to look away in regret. “I just… It’s like… I’ve had my mother taken away from me twice.”

“Wha-” Shiro couldn’t form the question, but Keith continued anyway.

“Once in being told she was dead, and then again, after finding out she was alive the whole time only to realize that she’s a horrible person who never really loved me!”

“I… I’m sorry Keith.” Shiro couldn’t look him in the eye. “But, you know, you don’t just tell that kind of thing to a little kid.”

“A little kid? Sure a  _ toddler  _ might not understand, I get why dad lied to me, but by the time I was ten I could gut a rabbit like it was second nature. I think I would’ve gotten it.” Keith stopped to breathe, but didn’t let Shiro get another word in before he continued the barrage. “You know what I think the problem was? You just didn’t want to face the problem at all. You  _ like  _ running away from things, don’t you? Is that why you ditched me as soon as I was too much of burden?”

“Keith, no!” Shiro stood up, finally quieting Keith. “It killed me to have to leave you, and… and I hated running. I wanted so, so badly to just stay with Allura and you and be happy but I couldn’t do anything except run. Run, or die.”

Keith was the one looking down now.

“But… there was another option. What you all did tonight - fight them - why didn’t you do that before? Why did you cling to the idea of running?”

Lance reached out over the edge of the bed to hold Keith’s hand again.

“Keith…” Shiro sat back down, running a hand over his face before he settled on the question. “Did your mother tell you why they want to kill me?”

“Yes. She said you were a traitor. So was dad.”

“Yeah… so, you know that we, uh, used to be with the organization?”

A pause.

“Were you?”

“Yes.” There was immense shame in the answer. “Well, sort of. Dad was a bit of a clueless recruit. He didn’t know what he was signing up for. He didn’t realize that they’d force his son to join as soon as he turned fifteen and send him off to do dirty work. He didn’t realize that they were the ones who really killed the mother of that son. And he sure didn’t realize that one of their top members would… get pregnant with his second child to force him to stay.”

Lance squeezed hard on Keith’s hand. He could see how wet and glistening his cheeks were.

“And I… I hadn’t talked to him since they ripped us apart. I settled into my new stationing at the old base around here and got real close with one of the local girls. I promised her I was gonna get out of the organization and help her raise her brother when her mom died. But then dad called me and told me _ I _ had a brother. A brother he’d left the organization for, just to keep him safe.” Shiro took a long, deep breath. “I think you know the rest.”

Keith nodded, shivering.

“So the truth is, I didn’t think I could fight them. I was marked as one of them… that tattoo on my right arm? It’s their way of claiming new recruits. The police would know what it was. I didn’t think I could go to them. And I couldn’t stay in one place. Dad tried that, and we both know how well it worked out.”

“Wait.” Keith swallowed down his sobs to interrupt. “I just… my mom said something when she had me tied up that, uh, made me wonder. Was she the one who killed dad?”

Shiro bit his lip before answering.

“Here’s the thing. Hunting down and killing defectors is just what the organization does. That being said, I know she was there that night. I just don’t know for sure if she was the one because, well, I didn’t see.”

“Right. Okay.” Keith’s hand wriggled idly in Lance’s as a tentative silence grew in the room. Finally, Lance decided to sit up.

“Keith. Babe? Look at me.” He held out his free hand and caught Keith’s wet cheek in it as soon as he turned. “Hey. I know this is a lot, and it hurts, and it feels wrong and gross but… it’s okay that it hurts. It’s probably going to hurt for a long time. I just think that being mad at Shiro is only going to make it hurt worse.”

“I’m not-” Keith started, but Lance rubbed his cheek so lovingly that he melted into the touch.

“Then tell him.” Lance pulled himself forward to plant a kiss on Keith’s forehead and then fell back into the bed. “You can go somewhere else if you need to. I don’t mind.”

“No. It’s okay.” Keith turned back to Shiro who hesitantly stood up. “I’m not mad at you. Not even a little bit. I just wish...”

Keith gave up.

“Me too.”

With that, they fell into each other. It had been such a long, long night and it felt so good to just stand there in each other’s arms after all those years apart. To Keith, leaning into Shiro was a familiar feeling. He could almost fall asleep standing up when his brother hugged him. But to Shiro, the boy in his arms was so different than the one he was used to. He was so much taller and so much stronger. It didn’t feel like he was holding something that had to be protected; Keith was his own person now. And he loved him more for it.

He couldn’t wait to get to know the person he’d become.

 

“Hey guys. Anyone want some watermelon?” Hunk plopped down in the grass next to his friends and offered the plate of dripping ripe fruit to them.

“Mm, heck yes!” Lance lunged for a slice. Keith giggled and took his own.

“I’ll just…” Pidge slid the plate out of his hands, attempting to take it all for herself.

“Hey, c’mon!” Hunk reached for it back, but she stood up and danced out of the way.

“Nope!” She taunted him, the two sliding here and there across the grass while Lance and Keith laughed up a storm from where they sat. It was July fourth; the smell of burgers on the grill wafting back from Hunk’s house. His parents decided to host all three families for the night and they planned to stay until dark, as one of the neighbors was known to set off fireworks.

It had been a quiet few weeks, with Hunk and Lance recovering from their various injuries and Shiro adjusting to life at home with Allura. Coran decided to get himself an apartment, but was a frequent visitor, and somehow got a job as a car salesman. It suited him.

Lance had since been filled in on everything that happened after he passed out. Keith’s mom had started shooting at the helicopter, and, while she managed to bring it down, it was already so close to ground that Shiro performed more of an emergency landing than a crash. By then, she was out of bullets and desperate, so Shiro knocked her out, grabbed Lance and ran with Keith all the way to the highway where Coran met them and drove them to the hospital. They soon discovered Pidge and Hunk were already there, and ten minutes after the doctor had left Lance to rest, he woke up.

The concussion was pretty nasty, but Lance was taking it easy and was sure to get over it by the time school started again.

“Lance. You’re staring.” Keith brought him back to the present. 

“Oh! I was just… thinking.” Lance shook his head, then took on a slicker tone. “But if was gonna stare at something, it would absolutely be that beautiful face of yo-”

“Sh-sh!” Keith threw a hand over Lance’s mouth, barely able to contain his laughter.

“You’re so much fun to tease.” Lance pulled Keith’s hand off and held it instead.

“You’re awful.” Keith couldn’t hide his smile as he said it. Lance gave him that love-sick look that he couldn’t resist and without thinking he leaned forward and gave him a peck on the lips.

“You say and then kiss me.” Lance was the one giggling now.

“Hey lovebirds! Burgers are ready!” Pidge interrupted them.

“Ugh. Rude.” Lance gave her a joking glare.

“C’mon.” Keith chuckled under his breath and pulled Lance along with him to the patio. The table was too small for all the people, so most of them sat on lawn chairs with their plates in their laps. Still, everyone talked to each other in one big, laughing circle of friends and family. Shiro didn’t seem used to it all; he kept looking at Allura like he needed help. Pidge was a riot as usual, especially with her brother Matt back from college to bounce off of. Hunk and Lance and Keith couldn’t get enough of the chips and the burgers and the soda. Meanwhile, Hunk and Pidge’s parents, the only ones still oblivious to everything that had happened with the organization, made their typical chatter.

Coran got there just as the sun was going down, his blue convertible clashing with the deep orange overhead. He brought sparklers for the kids to light, and had them running about the lawn long after the sun had gone down with the fickle little things. Everyone was worn out by the time the fireworks starting going off, but it made for a sweet ending to the night. Pidge and Hunk and Matt sprawled out on their backs, their parents watching from the lawn chairs. Allura leaned her head onto Shiro’s shoulder. Lance and Keith kicked each other’s feet when the other wasn’t looking until Pidge hissed at them to stop playing footsie. They resigned themselves to holding hands after that.

It was midnight when they finally left, so Keith and Lance fell asleep in the back of the car after riding for only five minutes. Shiro looked back at them from the passenger’s seat and couldn’t help but smile.

They were going home. They were all living together. They were happy.

“You were right,” Shiro said. Allura knew exactly what he meant.

“What did you expect?”

 

**The End**


End file.
